universo23

Universo AUTUMN 2009

Joy of texts How mobile phones are changing Africa

Crop ready

The boom in Angolan farming

Catch of the day

Fishing on the Kwanza

INSIDE:

oil and gas news

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Universo is the international magazine of Sonangol Board Members Manuel Vicente (President), Anabela Fonseca, Mateus de Brito, Fernando Roberto, Francisco de Lemos

Sonangol Department for Communication & Image Director João Rosa Santos

Publisher

Sheila O’Callaghan

Editor

Alex Bellos

Art Director David Gould

Sub Editor Ron Gribble

Advertising Design Bernd Wojtczack

Circulation Manager Matthew Alexander

Project Consultants Nathalie MacCarthy Mauro Perillo

Group President

John Charles Gasser Universo is produced by Impact Media Custom Publishing. The views expressed in the publication are not necessarily those of Sonangol or the publishers. Reproduction in whole or in part without prior permission is prohibited.

This magazine is distributed to a closed circulation. To receive a free copy: circulation@universo-magazine.com Circulation: 17,000

53 Chandos Place, London WC2N 4HS Tel + 44 20 7812 6400 Fax +44 20 7812 6413 sonangol@impact-media.com Cover: Kamene M Traça

2 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

Letter from the editor

W

ay before Angola was known as a country rich in hydrocarbons, it was known for its fertile arable land and lush climate. It is remarkable to think that Angola used to be the fourth biggest producer of coffee in the world, with the areas around Kwanza Sul especially productive. However, farming was difficult during the civil war.

Now there is peace, the agricultural sector is growing fast. In this issue we have a special report on the government’s plans to become self-sufficient by 2012. Angola needs to diversify from its reliance on petrol and diamonds to avoid being so vulnerable to fluctuations in the international commodities markets.

Another natural resource is fish.

Angolan waters have lots of fish. Big fish.

The country has great potential as a tourist destination for attracting sports fisherman – and, as we report, is already catching the eye of international anglers who come here for the threadfin, dorado and tarpon.

Meanwhile, Sonangol is pushing ahead on many fronts. It recently announced a sponsorship deal for a new type of motor racing called Superleague Formula, which means its logo will be seen by sports fans around the world. On a domestic note, a state-of-the-art laboratory has opened in Luanda. And as Angola’s presidency of Opec heads into the second half of its one-year term, the price of a barrel of oil is back to a respectable level. Across the board, the view looks good.

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Nadiejda Santos, Lúcio Santos, Cristina Novaes, José Mota, Beatriz Silva, Paula Almeida, Sandra Teixeira, Marta Sousa

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JOY TESSMAN

Corporate Communications Assistants

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National content in Angola

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Readers’ letters

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Angola news briefing President dos Santos attends the G8 summit in Italy; Angola’s stock market to open soon; Portuguese coach to run national football team; Russian president visits Angola; Trienal de Luanda art event to take place next year; new airline for domestic flights staffed by British Airways pilots

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Figured out A snapshot of Angola in numbers

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CONTENTS

Kamene M Traça

www.FlyCastaway.com/Gerhard Laubscher

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18

Kamene M Traça

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8 A SPECIAL REPORT ON AGRICULTURE IN ANGOLA

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Green shoots A ten-page feature about the state of farming in Angola and government plans to become self-sufficient in food by 2012. Millions of dollars are being invested in the agricultural sector by the Angolan government, as well as by the US, China and Israel.

Angola’s climate, rainfall and soil gives it excellent potential for crops including potatoes, maize and pineapples

14 Coffee: a special brew The aromatic beans are making a comeback

16 Bananas: the yellow road Plantation plans

18 Upwardly mobile How the mobile phone industry is booming in Angola, and how new communications technology is helping Africa

24 Origin of the species The San – or bushmen – of Angola are the focus of an amazing study of genetic data

28 Click clique A film project on the San by Namibian Richard Pakleppa

30 Gotcha!

Angola is a paradise for sports fisherman looking to catch huge fish such as tarpon, dorado, Atlantic threadfin, Crevalle jack, sailfin and blue marlin

Sonangol News 36 Sonangol

news briefing

38 Order and progress An interview with Vicente Inácio, QHSE manager

42 Lab fab A peek at Sonangol’s new laboratory

44 Top of the league Sonangol is sponsoring Superleague Formula, a new sport mixing cars and football

50 The Big Picture Angola’s rivers

AUTUMN 2009 3

EDITORIAL

National content in Angola A statement by Sonangol’s Negotiations Directorate

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ngola is the second-biggest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa after Nigeria, having the capacity to produce 2.1 million barrels per day (bpd). Restrictions imposed by Opec, which it joined in 2007, limits its production to an average of 1.6 million bpd.

In 2008, the Angolan oil and gas industry, which contributes around 83 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product, registered investments of about $5.4 billion in oil exploration, development projects and production activities.

However, Angola’s success story in becoming a major oil producer is undermined by the poor national content results that it has achieved in the past 30 years. This has led to an oil and gas industry dominated by foreign companies, a high percentage of expatriate workers (particularly in technical and supervisory roles) and a reduced number of Angolan suppliers of goods and services capable of addressing the needs of the industry.

In the last few years, a number of joint initiatives by the Angolan Oil Ministry and Sonangol, the state-owned oil and gas concessionaire, have tried to address these concerns, pressuring oil companies to source from local businesses and to increase the number of Angolan staff, but with limited results.

Political stability and an economic boom have brought back to the agenda the need to have a solid national content strategy. There is an imperative to achieve three important goals: First, to review the organisational structure of the Director Committee, a steering body created in 2005 by the Oil Ministry to co-ordinate all matters related to local content in the Angolan oil industry; second, to revise and update the existing related legislation; and third, to have a master plan that identifies the objectives, strategies, measurable targets and actions to be taken to increase the national content in the industry.

One of the challenges that the 4 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

Angolan oil industry will need to deal with in order to reach acceptable national content results is the shortage of a skilled and technically-educated Angolan workforce. In fact, the existing Angolan educational institutions have not been able to meet the labour demands of the oil industry in either quantity or quality.

This problem calls for an integrated solution from both the petroleum and the education sectors, a solution that must first determine the long-term needs, and second ensure that the conditions are in place to turn out sufficient numbers of trained Angolan workers with the right qualifications. One way to achieve this objective is to promote co-operation between educational institutions and the major players of the oil industry.

The development of local suppliers is another issue. Limited technical capacity, lack of information about business opportunities and bids procedures, deficiency in basic management practices and difficulty accessing credit, are some of the common problems of local companies.

The challenge for the Oil Ministry and Sonangol is to identify and implement actions for increasing the capacity of these companies to ensure their competitiveness in terms of price, quality, delivery and execution times. The setting-up of one official database for local vendors and the establishment of certification procedures and local supplier development programmes are basic solutions that can easily be implemented.

Some Angolan companies have been able to establish partnerships with foreign companies that have technical expertise.

However, it has been difficult to persuade those companies to transfer their engineering capacity to Angola, so nowadays almost all engineering projects are executed overseas.

Engineering capacity is closely linked to the limited number of Angolan engineers available in the work market,

making it crucial and urgent for Angola to train engineers en masse in all the different subjects and technical specialties.

The country also needs to invest in the construction of technological and scientific research institutes and to encourage, through incentives and/or obligations, the engineering companies to transfer part of their operations to Angola and to create centres of excellence.

With regards to Angola’s industrial and manufacturing capacity, its development and expansion should be based on oil and gas industry projects scheduled for the medium and long term, as the existing yards and logistic bases need to continue to improve and expand to meet the demands for goods, services and space.

The industrial business opportunities are many and varied as most of the materials and equipment are manufactured and assembled outside Angola. Industry and the petroleum sector will need to work together to identify what can be manufactured and assembled, and repaired and maintained in Angola. Also important is the identification of the raw materials used in the oil activities in country in order to promote their exploration at home and set up production and supply networks in Angola.

In conclusion, the national content issues of the Angolan oil industry call for an integrated strategy that promotes the co-operation of all sectors involved (e.g. education and industry) in collaboration with the major oil operators and the international service companies, and the revision of the existing legal, commercial and contractual framework in order to include more efficient incentives and obligations regarding national content.

There is also a need to identify national content targets and have an active official body to control the results achieved and propose counter measures.

These are the main issues of the philosophy for the national content strategy.

READERS’ LETTERS

British support Dear Sir In June, I joined many colleagues and members of the Angolan community to celebrate the birthday of our Queen, Elizabeth II. This occasion was special for us since it coincided with the visit of our Minister for Africa, Lord MallochBrown, a living symbol of our commitment to strengthening the history of friendship and co-operation between the UK and Angola.

The UK is keen to broaden and deepen our relationship with Angola.

This includes supporting the Angolan government’s plans for economic diversification, and developing co-operation in areas of shared interest and concern.

In the seven years since the civil war

ended, our bilateral trade and investment relationship with Angola has grown at an extraordinary rate. This growth is reflected in the staggering volume of the UK’s foreign direct investment in Angola – the UK being the second-largest investor in Angola with total investments valued at over $12 billion. Presently, the balance of trade is heavily in Angola’s favour with Angolan exports to the UK up by an astounding 285 per cent in 2008.

I believe Angola will certainly continue to attract British investment. In 2008 our government renewed export credit cover worth more than $70 million for Angola. I have also seen in the last couple of years several British trade delegations visiting the country – and many more intend to come. Likewise, we have

Houston, Texas

facilitated visits to the UK by Angolan companies looking to meet potential British investors.

In fields ranging from sports and leisure to hydrocarbon exploration, the UK is participating in the reconstruction and development of Angola. My country is a willing partner, supporting Angola’s efforts to rebuild and diversify its economy and British companies have the experience and ability to respond to the exacting demands of these requirements. It is my desire to see increased engagement with Angolan interlocutors on international issues that affect both of our countries.

Pat Phillips British Ambassador Luanda

Valentim Amões, Prodiaman, Prodoil and Test Angola.

Kudissanga will host the second annual conference and jobs fair in Houston, Texas, in April 2010. The number of Angolans formally educated in the US continues to rise, and we hope more companies will begin to recruit tham and view them as essential assets to their companies’ operation and success.

Living in the US Dear Sir Earlier this year, in commemoration of Angola’s seven years of peace, Kudissanga, the Angola Community Association in Washington, D.C., organised the first annual conference and jobs fair of the Conference of the Angolan Diaspora in the US. The theme of the conference was “Angolans in the United States of America: How to Contribute to a Better Angola!” The event was well attended by

Angolans living in the US eager to return home to assist Angola with its continuing efforts to increase economic development.

Established in 1991 to promot trade and investment between America and Angola, the US-Angola Chamber of Commerce (USACC) was pleased to support this initiative spearheaded by Kudissanga. The following USACC members participated in the jobs fair: Ancose, Chevron, Baker Energy, Grupo

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Maria da Cruz Executive Director US-Angola Chamber of Commerce

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was due to travel to Angola in August We welcome your opinions. If you would like to have a letter published, please email letters@universo-magazine.com. Letters may be edited for length.

AUTUMN 2009 5

Angola news briefing

AFP/Getty Images

Dos Santos at G8 Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos was one of a handful of African leaders representing their countries at the G8 summit – the meeting of the world’s richest nations – in Italy in July. Dos Santos took part in a number of discussions with global leaders and heads of financial and policy institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Speaking after his meeting with IMF President Dominique Strauss-Kahn, dos Santos said: “The IMF is not the same institution it used to be and is a lot more flexible.” Angola and the IMF, he said, were entering into the first phase of a new relationship and an IMF delegation was expected to visit Angola soon. Dos Santos used his presence at the meeting to call for better financial regulation within the G8 countries and em-

President dos Santos, centre, stands next to President Obama

Lift off

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Arty party

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Angola is to gain a new air carrier that will link its major cities and business hubs. Londonlisted company Lonrho is behind Fly 540, which will operate out of the northern oil hub Cabinda but will have links to the capital Luanda and to other cities including Huambo, Benguela, Soyo and Lubango. The Angolan franchise of Fly 540 will be staffed principally by former British Airways pilots. Fly 540 already operates in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and South Africa.

phasised that Africa had been greatly impacted by the global economic crisis.

He called for energy-producing and consuming countries to work together to ensure a stable oil price “in order for it not to put at stake the performance of our economies”. He also asked for more to be done internationally to ensure food security in order to help the poorest nations, and he underlined his interest in green energy and preserving the environment through development of alternative energy sources. The other African countries invited to the G8 summit in L’Aquila were South Africa, Egypt, Ghana and Senegal. Angola’s presence at the meeting was seen as a strong acknowledgment of the country’s economic, social and political progress since the end of its civil war in 2002.

The 2010 Trienal de Luanda contemporary-art event will take place next year between September and December and will include 200 events representing 14 different cultural disciplines. Called Emotional Geographies – Art and Artefacts, the trienal will have events in Luanda, Namibe, Benguela, Huambo and Lubango and will feature artists from Angola, other parts of Africa and around the world.

The 2007 Trienal de Luanda put Angola on the contemporary-art map and the 2010 event will reinforce its strong position within the African and global art scene.

Figured out Stock up soon

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Angola’s long-awaited stock market could open before the end of the year, according to media reports. The launch of the exchange had been expected to take place in the first quarter of the year, but the global financial crisis prompted many Angolan firms to hold back from listing. However, the chairman of the Capital Markets Commission Angolan stock exchange, Cruz de Lima, told Reuters that the regulatory framework for the Luanda Stock Exchange would soon be approved and a board for the CMC appointed which would pave the way for the opening. As many as 50 state and privately-owned Angolan companies are expected to list on the exchange.

Friendly Kremlin

1.2m tonnes

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visited Angola on his first tour of Africa, underlining the strength of the relationship between the two countries. Medvedev met President dos Santos for talks which focused on boosting trade and economic ties and led to the signing of a number of bilateral agreements. In one of the six agreements signed in Luanda, Russia said it would help place in orbit Angola’s first satellite, branded Angosat.

amount of cement Angola’s Nova Cimangola company plans to produce in 2009

680

Bottoms up!

Brewing giant SABMiller is on course to open a new $125 million brewery in the Angolan capital Luanda, as part of ongoing investment in the country.

SABMiller, which currently bottles Coca Cola at two sites in Angola, will begin producing a lager product at a new brewery just north of Luanda in October.

The investment will take its spending in Angola over the last 18 months to $250 million and the number employed by its joint-venture partner Empresa Cervejas de N’gola to over 2,000 across five brewery and bottling facilities.

22.7%

of Angolans are involved in early-stage start ups – according to the 2008 Global Enterprise Monitor survey

$600m value of the investment in the Comandante Gika complex, the biggest construction project in Luanda, which will feature apartments, offices, shops and a five-star hotel

Soccer boss

$1bn

amount Angola is spending in preparing the country for the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations tournament including new stadiums and revamps of airports and cities

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Portuguese football coach Manuel José (pictured) has been hired to run the Palancas Negras as they prepare to host the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations tournament in January.

After failing to qualify for the World Cup in South Africa, Angola, under the management of Mabi de Almeida, hit hard times and suffered a string of defeats against Mali and Cape Verde and a 0-0 draw with Namibia. In June, the Angolan Football Federation announced that Manuel José, renowned for his trophy haul at Egyptian side Al-Ahly, would be taking over the job. With just a few months to go to restore the team’s confidence and build a winning side, José has said that he will work hard to get the team as far in the competition as possible.

number of exhibitors who took part in the annual Luanda International Trade Fair, or Filda, in July

AUTUMN 2009 7

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Fruits of labour: Bananas are plentiful in Angola and could soon be grown for export

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AGRICULTURE

GREEN

SHOOTS Angola is hoping to restore its position as a breadbasket of Africa âž”

AUTUMN 2009 9

International money is also pouring into the country. Fruit conglomerate Chiquita is investing in banana plantations and the coffee industry is being revitalised. In addition, there are Israeli-run farms, plans for Vietnamese rice-growing initiatives and trials of a new lager made from locallygrown root vegetables.

Credit lines of millions of dollars from countries including China, as well as partnerships with a number of Israeli companies, are helping to bankroll Angola’s agricultural development.

The Aldeia Nova (New Village) project is a joint government and Israel business initiative which aims to promote better production and cultivation methods. The Aldeia Nova in Waku Kungo, Kwanza Sul, covers 17,000 hectares and includes eight villages. Seven more are under construction, each focusing on separate areas such as dairy, egg production or the breeding of poultry, pigs and cattle. More Aldeia Novas are planned.

Other initiatives are also being set up around the country providing training and jobs and offering small farmers access to

“

Vulnerable The focus on agriculture has been welcomed by economists who have long been calling on Angola to diversify. “Dependence on just one or two products, like oil and diamonds, makes the economy extremely vulnerable to the forces of international markets and has an impact on the long-term development of a country,” says Ricardo Gazel, World Bank senior economist in Angola. “Diversifying the economy into labour-intensive areas like agriculture is the key for Angola’s long-term development.”

The focus on rural development was the theme of this year’s Luanda International Trade Fair, or Filda. Agriculture has dominated local headlines with a series of high-profile government conferences

Diversifying the economy into labour-intensive areas like agriculture is key for Angola’s long-term development

10 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

Ricardo Gazel, World Bank senior economist

Melanie Acevedo

Revitalise

microcredit for seeds, tools and fertilisers.

“The government sees farming as a top priority that will enable us to solve our food problem,” says Minister of Agriculture Pedro Canga. “The country has great potential in terms of land and water resources, and it is now rebuilding infrastructure such as roads in order to create an environment that is favourable for investments in the farming sector.”

As well as reducing reliance on food imports – which push up prices and are part of the reason why container ships are always queuing up in the Port of Luanda – revitalising agriculture has three long-term benefits for the country. The first is to diversify the extractives-based economy which has taken a hit during the recent fall in commodity prices. The second is to help the millions of Angolans who still live in poverty as a result of the war by creating jobs and livelihoods. The third is to encourage those who fled to urban areas during the conflict to return home.

Joao Paglione

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ngola is best known for its oil and diamonds, but in years gone by it was also a major exporter of coffee, maize, sugar and rice.

Three decades of civil war destroyed much of the farming industry, littered the countryside with landmines and saw millions flee to the cities for safety. But now, seven years into peace and with Angola politically and economically stable, things are very different. The government hopes to restore the country’s reputation as a breadbasket of Africa with an ambitious spending plan and a target of self-sufficiency by 2012.

Benjamin Lowy/Corbis

AGRICULTURE

Alison Bird

Local branch: women in Benguela loading bananas onto trucks to be sold at markets

Food for thought Angola’s good climate and rainfall gives it excellent agricultural potential.

The wide range of fruits and vegetables that grow easily here includes bananas, carrots, cassava, maize, cabbage, lettuce, tomatoes, potatoes, sweet potatoes, plantains, peppers, aubergines, squash, courgettes and pineapples.

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The Angolan government is aiming to increase agricultural production by 12 per cent in 2009 – focusing on staples such as maize and cassava.

Agriculture is currently worth 3 to 4 per cent of GDP. The plan is to increase this to 10 per cent in the next five years.

AUTUMN 2009 11

“

One scheme which aims to help farmers gain a stable income is a project to make a lager with cassava, a locally-grown root vegetable

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and debates about farming and the countryside.

The newly-formed Secretariat for Rural Development (Seder) is promoting an agrorural revitalisation plan, boosting rural services such as schools and medical posts as well as creating jobs and improving transport links.

Seder’s head of planning Altemiro Diogo says that livelihoods are at the heart of the policy. “The rural economy is extremely important for the development of this country because a large number of the population live in rural areas,” he says.

“Only with the development of these areas can we say that that the country is developing. A lot of people live off subsistence farming, but we need to create conditions so that the people can earn more money from their work and improve their lives.”

Angolan spuds: potato farmers in Huambo

USAID

Home brews

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One such scheme which aims to help farmers gain a stable income is a project to make a lager with cassava, a locally-grown root vegetable. The hops used in most lagers are not indigenous to Africa and are expensive to import. This is also an acknowledgment of the popularity of home brews, often made from grains such as millet and sorghum, which are substantially cheaper than the blond-style Western lager sold in the country.

Louie Psihoyos/Science Faction/Corbis

AGRICULTURE

Getty Images/Stringer

New beer: Peroni distributor is developing a local lager

Following the success of a sorghum beer brewed in Uganda called Eagle, brewing giant SABMiller is now working on a cassava-influenced lager which is to be sold in Angola on a trial basis. “As well as creating a new product for the market, it is creating a demand for manioc plants locally and the idea is that we will help the farmers get set up and offer them any technical advice they need,” says a company spokesman.

SABMiller, which makes Coca Cola and other soft drinks and distributes lagers such as Castle and Peroni in Angola, also hopes the country’s sugar production will go up as the company currently imports ten container loads a day.

Chiquita is the other big name hoping to get a foot in the Angolan agricultural door. Its joint venture with Escom (a member of Grupo Espírito Santo) is developing a banana plantation in Benguela province, already a traditional banana area, and off the back of that thousands of new jobs.

Michael Nehrbass, a programme officer for USAID, which supports a number of agricultural schemes in Angola, says: “The fact that Chiquita is here shows Angola’s potential. It will create jobs not just for the plantation workers but also for pallet makers, transporters and all the support services this industry demands. Dole Food Company and Del Monte have also been looking at opportunities in Angola, so there is a lot going on here.”

Plough time: John Deere tractors

As well as the farming companies themselves, a new market is opening up for agricultural products.

Potential In May, a US trade delegation visited Angola. Among the group was Heather Ranck, from the US Department of Commerce’s agribusiness team, whose job is to promote companies like tractor maker John Deere. She said: “Agriculturally, Angola has what you need to be successful: good soil, good rainfall and lots of land. And from a business point of view it is a very exciting time. Some US companies I contacted before visiting Angola told me they were already doing business here; they had already seen the potential.

“As the commercial farming sector gets developed, I think the smallholder farmers can also tap into these developments and benefit. For instance, when new seeds and fertilisers are procured on a large scale, they are cheaper and smallholders can share in that lower price.”

A lot of work is going on in rural communities to boost agriculture and livelihoods under the auspices of NGOs like World Vision and agencies such as USAID. There are already a number of successful farming co-operatives, training schemes and microcredit systems up and running which are changing people’s lives for the better.

Angola’s president, José Eduardo dos Santos, recently drew praise from Jacques Diouf, the director general of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, who said: “I am very happy with the priority that President dos Santos and the Angolan government have been giving to the farming sector, in particular to the family agriculture.”

However, amid the fanfare and million-dollar plans, local voices are also calling for careful planning and consideration about how rural development schemes are managed. Sérgio Calundungo, head of Angolan NGO Action for Rural Development and Environment, welcomes the investment but says it is vital that money is not just thrown at municipalities.

“It’s very important to find what people in these communities need. You can’t just find one solution and apply it all over the country. Each village is different. It might seem a good idea to give a village a tractor, but who is going to drive that tractor? Who will service it? And if the tractor spreads the seeds, what will the women and children do because that is traditionally their job?”

Angola’s agricultural relaunch will not happen overnight, but the right steps are being made. If the country can begin to reduce its reliance on imported food and help to diversify the economy, livelihoods will improve.

AUTUMN 2009 13

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Coffee: a special brew

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AGRICULTURE

giving free coffee plants to small farmers to encourage them to get back into growing. The main coffee-growing areas are Kwanza Sul, Uíge in the north and Huambo in the central highlands.

The difference in soil and climate from area to area means the beans cultivated are distinct and the plan is to market these different tastes and qualities. USAID and Chevron are financing ProAgro, a $5.7 million agricultural programme working with coffee producers in Kwanza Sul and banana growers in Benguela.

In Gabela, Kwanza Sul, a team from the Cooperative League of the United States of America (Clusa) is helping smallholders get business and technical know-how and access to bank credit.

ProAgro has also been working to link Angolan producers with international exporters. “To earn money from coffee you need to have a very big farm and be very organised; that’s the challenge,” says Estêvão Rodrigues, Clusa’s Angola representative. “In colonial times, there was a different sort of labour force available and that’s one of

the reasons that Angola’s coffee plantations were so successful.

“The incentive for farmers has to be the price. If the price is high enough and they can make money, coffee will do well here.”

Pascoal Miranda, co-ordinator of Inca’s coffee rehabilitation project in Gabela, is more optimistic. “Angolan coffee has a good future,” he says. “I think that with the projects we’re implementing, our processes are going to be commercialised and I believe they will play a major part in the development of the country.

“Coffee is not going to run out like oil. It employs a large workforce and brings in money, and I am sure our country can only gain from growing coffee.

“Our robusta coffee from Angola is unique. It is grown in the mountains, it has its own flavour and what we make here is all 100 per cent organic with no additives.”

Next time you are buying coffee in Angola, forget the expensive imports and try some tastier and organic homegrown varieties.

AFP/Getty Images

A

ngola was once the fourth largest exporter of coffee in the world after Brazil, Colombia and the Ivory Coast, and its distinctive robusta Amboim bean from Kwanza Sul was widely sought after.

In 1974, just before independence, Angola produced 228,000 tonnes of coffee with 2,500 large commercial farms and 250,000 smaller farmers involved in its production. By 1985, there were just 34 state-owned farms producing a mere 8,890 tonnes.

“There is such a rich history of coffee here in Angola, but now production is barely a few per cent of what it was during independence,” says Michael Nehrbass, an agricultural specialist with USAID. However, aware of the country’s great coffee potential, the government has pledged to invest $150 million over the next four years. The plan is to increase output to 50,000 tonnes a year by 2013 on the back of a scheme to train farmers and modernise coffee production across the nation.

Part of the investment includes the Angolan National Coffee Institute (Inca)

AUTUMN 2009 15

AGRICULTURE

B

company could import bananas into Angola for less than it was paying for them locally.

However, exports could soon become a reality with Angolan bananas being sold in European supermarkets and beyond. Banana giant Chiquita, along with Portuguese conglomerate Escom and its Angolan partner Hipergesta, are in the process of creating a banana plantation in Benguela.

Planting is expected to begin later this year with the first commercial exports to start in 2010.

While Chiquita will not be providing capital, the company will be supporting the project with expertise in farm development, good agricultural practices, the training of local workers, logistics, marketing and distribution to European markets.

On a smaller scale, the Co-operative League of the United States of America (Clusa), thanks to funding from USAID and Chevron, is working with smallholders in Benguela to help them increase their yields and to set up co-operatives to boost their buying and

Alison Bird

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ananas are one of the very few things in which Angola is selfsufficient. There are thousands of hectares of both dessert and plantain (cooking) banana plantations, mostly in the southern province of Benguela, but they also grow wild up in Uíge.

Flatbed lorries fill the roads as they drive up into Luanda with huge curved bunches of freshly-picked bananas.

Bananas, however, are quite difficult to grow commercially on a small scale.

They are perishable and fragile, so need to be handled with care. Clumsy transportation can cause blemishes, which is unattractive to customers.

Logistical problems such as a lack of good transport, bad roads and a congested port all add to the difficulties of getting high quality fruit into the marketplace, and exportation compounds these challenges.

Because of the high levels of waste, bananas grown in Angola are not cheap. A trial export deal with the South African-based supermarket chain Shoprite failed because the

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Alison Bird

Bananas: the yellow road

“

Once we get the banana sector going, there’s hope for other fruit too like citrus fruit and pineapples. It’s a big hope

”

Estêvão Rodrigues, Clusa

selling powers.

“The challenge is to increase the yield,” says Estêvão Rodrigues, Clusa’s Angola representative. “By using better plants, taking better care of them and by moving from flood irrigation to micro-sprinkle irrigation, you can increase yields from 25 tonnes a hectare to 50. I definitely think bananas will do well here, especially if the exporting mechanisms are put in place.

For instance, we need a specific banana terminal at the Port of Lobito, which would get the fruit out quicker, rather than taking it up the long road to Luanda and then into the congested port there.

“Once we get the banana sector going, there’s hope for other fruit too, like pineapples and citrus fruit. It’s a big hope.”

AUTUMN 2009 17

Alison Bird

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MOBILE PHONES

UPWARDLY

MOBILE Angola’s booming mobile phone industry is changing lives, reports Nina Hobson

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he mobile phone is a success story in Angola. Since the licensing of mobile operators began in 2000, the market has boomed. There are two companies, Movicel and Unitel. Movicel has about 2.5 million users and Unitel about five million – in a country with only eight million adults. According to Inacom, the agency responsible for regulating and monitoring telecommunications services in Angola, mobile phone density rose by 32 per cent in 2007 and is set to rise further this year.

Meanwhile, a report by consultants Frost & Sullivan says revenues in the Angolan mobile-communications market are set to triple by 2015. The company’s lead research analyst Silvia Hirano Venter says that this record growth is due in part to state initiatives.

“The law of universal access implemented by the Ministry of Communications seeks to provide communication facilities for everyone, everywhere in Angola,” she says.

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An example of this is the renovation package for Huambo province, in which the rural municipality of Mungo, about 120km from its provincial capital, has been prioritised for connection to both Angolan mobile telephone networks.

Mobile phones have experienced this amazing growth because there is a real need for them. The country has only about 200,000 landlines and because the traditional communications infrastructure is precarious, mobile phones are now being used in very ingenious ways.

New weapon In the rural south of Angola a mobile phone beeps, alerting the phone’s young owner that a text has been received. He looks at the screen and reads the message: Life is stronger than Aids. Get an HIV test.

In Africa, the mobile phone is much more than just a handy tool for people to keep in touch or send messages to each other. It is an important new weapon in the

war against the spread of infection. For example, the Angolan National Institute for the Fight Against Aids (INLS) sends out text messages that provide information relating to the disease.

“Text messages are a great way to raise awareness, combat stigma and provide information on treatment. They are short, clear and hard hitting,” says Luís Santos Kyame, a director of the INLS. “Text messages are direct and personal, yet do not infringe on people’s privacy. People respond well to text-message campaigns because they are addressed personally, but they do not feel threatened.”

Last year, during the general election, Angolan phone users could text their voter registration number to a central number, which would send back a text informing them of the nearest polling station. In European countries, this information would normally be received by post or online via the internet, two options which are not always available in parts of

Hello Luanda! There are almost as many mobile phones in Angola as there are adults Randy Faris/Corbis

AUTUMN 2009 19

Kamene M Traรงa

Beach cover: mobile phones can be used where there are no land lines

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MOBILE PHONES

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London Business School

Angola. In fact, mobile phones are so important in the developing world that they have been hailed as one of the best ways to improve livelihoods. A study by the London Business School concluded that an increase in mobile phone penetration by 10 per cent leads to an increase in GDP by 0.6 per cent.

Positive outlook One idiosyncrasy of Angola’s mobile industry is that people often have two phones – one from each operator – since it is cheaper to call a phone from the same network, and reception often varies in different areas.

Movicel and Unitel are very prominent in Angolan life. Unitel was the number one advertiser on Angolan TV last year, and billboards for both companies are seen all over Luanda.

Research analyst Venter says that the outlook is very positive for the Angolan mobile phone industry. “Government reconstruction efforts are not only facilitating the expansion of mobile networks, but are also fuelling growth in all sectors of industry, and thus the demand for mobile communications increases too.”

She adds that the Angolan networks are improving their services because of foreign investment. “Foreign companies are importing staff from countries with developed technology, so they are likely to demand value-added services. Mobile phone operators are therefore investing in infrastructure development to support this.”

While she acknowledges that there are still connection problems in some rural areas, Venter notes that both Unitel and Movicel are upgrading their systems and expanding their networks rapidly, “resulting in a boom in 2013, which will settle but remain strong”.

Equally, Research and Markets, a company which specialises in international market research, is projecting revenue in Angola to grow by an average of 15 to 20 per cent over the next three years. It predicts that “Angola is deep enough for mobile services to break the $2 billion mark before 2010, and at least come close to $3 billion before 2013. This is a remarkable feat: Angola is half the size of Kenya in subscriber terms, but will be almost twice

its size in revenue terms.”

On a social level, mobile phones are now indispensible in education. For Ana Tato, a teacher working in Katabola School in rural Bié province, a mobile phone has allowed her to build up a huge network of contacts and deal with problems and emergencies much quicker than previously.

“I can contact and be contacted by students whenever necessary,” she says. “If a pupil is absent from school for a prolonged period, I can call them directly or get in touch with their parents or a friend.”

Mobile phones are used widely throughout the school and from one school to the next, since there are only a few landlines. “If there is an IT problem in another school further away in the province, I can often solve it by phone,” says Tato. “If there is a teacher absent, we can find a replacement. Mobile phones save us so much time travelling around the province.”

A mobile phone is also important to her in her private life. Many Angolans fled to different provinces during the war and are now resettling across the country. “The members of my family live very far away from one another and so having a mobile means we can stay in touch,” she says.

The growth of the mobile phone market is not only great business – it is helping Angolans at every level of the social spectrum.

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An increase in mobile phone penetration by 10 per cent leads to an increase in GDP by 0.6 per cent

UNITEL Founded: 2001 Market share: 62 per cent

MOVICEL Founded: 2003 Market share: 38 per cent

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MOBILE PHONES

Vital instruments: new ways that mobile phones are used in Africa

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n 2001, Africa became the first continent where the number of mobile subscribers exceeded fixed-line users.

With almost 280 million customers, Africa is now the fastest-growing market in the world. It is estimated that by 2010, a third of Africans will own a mobile phone.

Mobiles are now recognised as vital instruments of change in finance, agriculture, the media and development work. Here are a few of the innovative ways that mobiles are changing the shape of the continent.

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Since 2005, South African banks have allowed account holders to pay for goods, transfer money to friends and family and top up credit on their pre-pay phones via text message. The service is called m-banking and is used by almost five million clients. Transfers via mobile phone are reportedly as safe as using ATM machines or the internet as each customer has a personal code, and voice-recognition technology is used to screen customers.

Banks in Nigeria and Kenya offer a similar service. A bank in Zambia allows consumers to pay utility, television, restaurant and petrol bills using their mobile phones.

M-banking is expected to continue spreading throughout Africa and will eventually reach Angola.

Health In South Africa, the NGO Cell-Life runs a project which uses mobile phones to provide information for people infected 22 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

Owen Franken/Corbis

Banking

Pass mark: exam results are sent by text message

with or affected by HIV. This includes mass messaging for awareness raising, links to the national Aids helpline via text message and adherence messaging – a reminder to take antiretroviral drugs at the prescribed times or to attend appointments. In Mali, the Ikon Telemedicine Project allows doctors from smaller hospitals to get advice from larger hospitals via their mobile phones. Trials have also got under way in Ghana for a simple text message system which will allow customers purchasing medicine to be assured of its quality before leaving the pharmacy. The consumer scratches off a panel on the drug’s packet to reveal a unique code. The consumer then sends a text message with this code to a hotline number which confirms if the medicine is authorised and original. The project, currently in the latter stages of development, is being led by nonprofit organisation mPedigree and is set to be introduced in Ghana as well as Nigeria and possibly Rwanda. The providers have also expressed their interest in extending the concept to French-speaking and Portuguese-speaking Africa, including Angola.

Education Students from rural communities studying at the University of South Africa can now study from home, even receiving exam results via their mobile phones.

Employment The Kenyan company Mobile4Good runs a service to alert job seekers about potential work via text messages.

Agriculture TradeNet, a Ghana-based trading firm, allows farmers to access prices from traders and advertise their merchandise by mobile phone, ensuring they get the fairest price for their produce. TradeNet offers services in Benin, Burkina Faso, the Ivory Coast, Ghana, Madagascar, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Sudan and Togo. Similarly, in Senegal and Tanzania, farmers and fishermen are able to receive market-price updates via text message. In Cameroon, farmers can also use mobile phones to contact rural-development agronomists based in Yaoundé, the capital, with questions via the ‘Allo ingenieur’ scheme.

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With almost 280 million subscribers, Africa is now the fastest-growing market in the world

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AUTUMN 2009 23

GENETICS

ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES A group of Angolans might be the direct descendants of the earliest human beings.

Universo reports on a fascinating study of African genetic data

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ver wondered where the first humans came from? Thanks to advances in genetic research, scientists are closer than ever before to answering that question – and a group of native Angolans may hold the key.

A ten-year study of DNA samples from all over Africa analysed the genetic make-up of 121 African populations and came to the conclusion that the continent is made up of 14 ancestral population clusters.

By looking at the genetic diversity of the samples, a team of scientists led by Dr Sarah Tishkoff of the University of Pennsylvania discovered that the group with the most ancient roots was the San who live in the border area between Angola and Namibia.

Formerly known as bushmen, the San are an ethnic group that number about 90,000 and live in isolated communities in Angola, Namibia, Botswana, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

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Richard Pakleppa

First people? the Angolan San have the oldest DNA in the world AUTUMN 2009 25

GENETICS

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Africa is the most genetically diverse continent in the world, which shows that its population is the oldest

DNA under the microscope

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The region, the study says, is near the midpoint of the African coast of the Red Sea. Dr Tishkoff has been widely praised for her work published in May this year in the American journal Science Express.

Muntaser Ibrahim, a researcher from the University of Khartoum who was also involved in the study, has called it “a spectacular insight into the history of African populations and, therefore, the history of mankind”, and Alison Brooks, a specialist on African anthropology at George Washington University, described it as “an enormously impressive piece of work”.

The DNA was collected by taking blood or cheek swab samples from across the continent. The study has given historians, linguists and anthropologists a whole new volume of research with which to test out theories of population history, cultural evolution and human migration across Africa.

For instance, by looking at lactose tolerance genes and how they have mutated in different parts of Africa, the team can trace the introduction of cattle herding and the domestication of agriculture.

More importantly, there is now a new foundation for medical and pharmaceutical research which can help scientists and doctors tackle HIV, malaria and tuberculosis, all major killers in Africa.

According to Dr Tishkoff, the genetic

iStockphoto

Dr Tishkoff explained that the more genetically diverse a person’s DNA, the older that person’s ancestry. “The assumption is that the oldest population has the most genetic diversity because it takes time to accumulate the variation,” she said.

Since the San from the Angola-Namibia area had the most diverse DNA of the study, this showed that they were the world’s “oldest living population”.

While it was already known that the first humans came from Africa – which now has a population of 680 million – it has long been a matter of debate which part of the continent they came from.

Dr Tishkoff said, however, that just because the San people are related to the first humans, this did not mean that the species began where the San now live. “It is very possible these populations may have migrated from another region, such as Eastern Africa,” she said. If that were so, then the San people of the Angola-Namibia border “would be the descendants of that original migration”.

Africa is the most genetically diverse continent in the world, which shows that its population is the oldest. Dr Tishkoff’s team has also calculated the exit point from which a small human group – believed to be a single tribal band of around 150 people – left Africa 50,000 years ago and went on to populate the rest of the world.

library will help create a better understanding about interpretations of drugs and disease risks. “People can respond differently to different drugs and different diseases,” she said. “For example, there is one gene which makes people more naturally resistant to malaria but gives them a very bad reaction to some malaria medication.

“Then there is another gene which varies the tolerance of medicine for tuberculosis, so one person may benefit from a dose but the same-sized dose could be toxic for someone else.”

She explained that most genetic research has been done in the Western population and very little is still known about HIV and malaria. “If we don’t include Africa in genetic research, then we are not going to be able to understand its genetic environment and the continent will be left behind, which is a problem when you look at the needs of Africa.”

Dr Tishkoff is humble enough to admit her work only scratches the surface and that she studied 120 populations out of a possible 2,000, but she believes it is an important start. “This is a beginning and we hope that our work will motivate others for future studies.

“Long term, we want to play a role in training African scientists to do humangenetics research, with facilities, technology and training for African educational institutions so that they can play an important role in future research in Africa.”

Other needs may also be satisfied by Dr Tishkoff’s work, and that is the renewed interest among African Americans about their ancestry. “We know that many African Americans originate from slaves leaving West Africa, and that includes Angola, which was a large exporter of slaves,” she said.

“It will be very interesting to look more closely at the links between Angola and African Americans. There has been very little genetic research done from within Angola and this is a huge untapped area with a lot of potential.”

Roger De La Harpe; Gallo Images/CORBIS REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko

JOY TESSMAN

Tibor Bognar/Corbis

Frans Lanting/Corbis

Dr Tishkoff believes a single tribal group of 150 people left Africa 50,000 years ago and went on to populate the rest of the world

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GENETICS

CLICK CLIQUE Richard Pakleppa

A Namibian filmmaker is raising awareness of Angola’s San

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he beauty and intrigue of the ancient San first caught Richard Pakleppa’s attention as a boy while visiting his grandfather’s farm in Namibia. Fascinated, he began to learn some words of their unusual language (see box).

After working as a trade union officer, Pakleppa went on to represent Namibian San over land-rights issues and in 2004 he was part of the team behind Where the First are Last, the first study of the Angolan San communities in more than 30 years.

Pakleppa’s latest project is a film part-financed by Christian Aid and the Netherlands Development Ministry called Da Terra, do Fogo e da Agua (Earth, Fire and Water). Filmed in Huíla and Cunene provinces, which are home to Angola’s San communities, now believed to number just a few thousand, the film offers a rarely-seen insight into the lives of the descendants of the first humans. Pakleppa spent weeks travelling into some of the remotest parts of Angola to hear the stories of the San whose numbers are dwindling fast.

As well as their distinctive language, brightly-coloured clothes and bead adornments, and unique physical appearance, the San are also known for their music and trance-dances. These dances take on various forms, depending on each community and its tradition and what the dance is for, whether to protect from evil spirits, to heal, to bring rain or to visit others in out-ofbody experiences.

The dancers sometimes adorn themselves with rattles made from fruit cases with seeds inside, or hold sticks or pieces of animals. Once the dancing begins, the dancer is transported into a trance. Often the trances end in fainting

as the dancer enters into an altered state.

“Traditionally, they are huntergatherers relying on game and bush food,” said Pakleppa. “Inward migration of Bantu groups led them to lose access to large stretches of land over 300 years preceding the war. During the war many animals were hunted, leaving little large game. The smaller game has in many cases been seen off by new animals being brought in by the Bantu farmers, cattle for instance. Then you have land being taken over, bush food trampled underfoot, less rainfall so less grows, then there are floods…these are all factors which have reduced their resources and their traditional survival skills are dying out.”

Extreme poverty Pakleppa said this had left many San living in extreme poverty without the support to which other Angolans have access, and disease and hardship were commonplace. “They can’t hunt and gather any more, so they have to go and ask for help and work for their neighbours. In many cases they are exploited as cheap labour and sometimes they are paid in alcohol, not money, which causes more problems.”

Pakleppa, who is based in London but travels regularly back to Africa on film assignments, said the film was designed to show the lives of the San to other Angolans. “We wanted people to get a better understanding of the San and not to just think they are beggars or scavengers on the edge of society,” he explained.

“I have spent a lot of time with San people. They can be really raucous, and dynamic and crazy; they sometimes laugh out loud in the middle of the hardest moments. They have this very dark sense of humour, born out of their

conditions, like you see in the toughest neighbourhoods of Luanda. It’s that kind of tough spiritedness that all Angolans have.”

Pakleppa said money was starting to be spent helping create dialogue between San and Bantu communities where there had been problems, and he hoped more funding in the future would continue this.

Angolan NGO Organização Cristã de Apoio ao Desenvolvimento Comunitário (Christian Organisation Supporting. Community Development) which is working closely with the provincial government in Huíla, has made a major contribution.

“We are not about pointing fingers with the film – it’s about exploring the situation as it is and asking how we can make it better,” said Pakleppa. “I don’t believe in ethnic rights, this is simply about human rights. I really believe in the San; they are wonderful people.”

Tip of the tongue The Angolan San speak !Kung, which like several other languages in southern Africa involves speaking with a click sound. It is thought that the click sound came about because it helped the San to communicate while hunting – animals are scared by human language but not by clicks.

Some basic !Kung phonetics: // This sign is used when writing San words to indicate a click – similar to the sound made when urging a horse to move. / Another click sound, like the ‘tutting’ sound made when expressing sympathy. ! A tongue click which has the sound of cork popping from a bottle. # With one slash only, a sound like the sucking of a baby made with the tongue just behind the teeth.

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TOURISM

GOTCHA!

Angola offers some of the best fishing in the world – as tourists are beginning to find out ➔

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www.FlyCastaway.com/Gerhard Laubscher

Green giant: a 25lb dorado caught near Luanda

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or fly fishermen, Angola is the final frontier, unchartered waters waiting to be discovered. Fish such as tarpon, dorado, Atlantic threadfin and Crevalle jack can all be found in abundance in Angola’s estuaries, and in weights and sizes rarely seen elsewhere.

“There are a lot of fish waiting to be caught in Angola,” says Gerhard Laubscher, a South African who runs FlyCastaway, a specialist company organising global fly-fishing trips. “We travel the world looking for the best places to take our clients.

Angola has excellent fishing and more and more people are starting to go there for this reason.”

Jungle base “It is a venue unlike any other we have fished and guided in. Its potential and diversity mixed with the unique jungle environment at our base on the Kwanza River is a life-altering experience.”

Angola’s sport-fishing resources are certainly getting the country noticed. As well as attracting anglers from around the world, South African satellite television operator DStv is currently broadcasting a leisure-fishing series featuring Angola across the continent.

Even before FlyCastaway and other operators began trips to Angola, it had long been a popular fishing destination. Prior to independence in 1975, the country was the place for Atlantic sailfish. During the conflict years, fishing became less accessible, but since 1987 there have been annual

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We travel the world looking for the best places to take our clients.

Angola has excellent fishing and more and more people are starting to go there for this reason offshore fishing events attracting international fishermen in search of sailfish, blue marlin and tuna, and the country holds many weight records for these species.

Part of the reason for the attraction to Angola is that the war kept fishing levels down and allowed the seas and rivers to restock. The current boom is in inshore fly fishing, particularly on the River Kwanza, whose mouth is situated at the north of Kissama National Park, and on the River Longa, which joins the ocean at its base.

Here coastal fish enter the estuaries at different times of year creating an angling paradise where record weights are regularly recorded.

The Kwanza is less than an hour’s drive from Luanda and is a popular weekend destination for expatriate oil workers and international visitors. Lodges – some upmarket, some more basic – are springing up as a peaceful escape from the noise of the city, and offer good food, stunning sunsets and plenty of fishing nearby.

The Kwanza begins in Kwanza Sul and flows north and west out to the Atlantic through Kwanza Norte and Bengo

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Gerhard Laubscher, FlyCastaway

provinces. Typical of a jungle river, it is thick in vegetation with large mangroves lining the banks of the heavily-silted waters.

Here in August in the lower reaches of the river, among the large drifting islands of grass and weeds, visitors will find giant or “bull” dorado, a favourite among anglers because of their playful acrobatics and electric colouring.

Stubborn fighters These fish, regularly weighing more than 40lbs, explode into the air when hooked, tail walking along the water, as if deliberately showing off their neon hues. Further into the river are Crevalle jack. These stubborn fighters roam in packs close to the shore, hunting down the shoals of smaller fish which swim in this area. Weighing up to 50lbs, Crevalle jack are known for their dogged determination and can be the toughest to tangle with on a fly rod.

Another sought-after catch is the giant African threadfin, which are found at the mouth of the Kwanza and up the Atlantic Coast into the Gulf of Guinea.

The best time of year to catch

Further south down the coast in the desert province of Namibe, fishing enthusiasts are drawn to the mouth of the Cunene River for giant kob, garrick and shad as well as bronze whaler sharks, large yellowbelly rock cod and skate. More intrepid rodsmen can cross to the Baía dos Tigres – Bay of Tigers – a tiny island of only 95 square metres, once joined to the mainland and now only accessible at certain tide times.

Here among the lagoons there is an abundance of bird life, dolphins, turtles and game such as gemsbok and jackals, as well as excellent fishing, particularly for sharks and rays. This barely-touched wilderness is just a few hundred kilometres north of the Angolan and Namibian border, close to Lubango in Huíla where there is an airport. The region is also popular with adventure travellers looking for off-road tours and quad biking. It may be becoming more accessible, however, as there is a government plan to redevelop the area with a quay, an airport, an urban centre and the installation of a wind-energy station.

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Paul Brehem/Photographers Direct

Southern catches

www.FlyCastaway.com/Gerhard Laubscher

Double hander: a 170lb Atlantic tarpon caught with fly tackle in the mouth of the Kwanza River

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David Fleetham/naturepl.com

Silver fish: a white-fin Crevalle jack from Mussulo Bay

www.FlyCastaway.com/Gerhard Laubscher

Teamwork! A young female dorado taken from a weed line just off Luanda

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TOURISM

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Gerhard Laubscher, FlyCastaway

threadfin in Angola is in July and August, according to Iain Nicholson, a Brit and long-term resident in Angola, who is the country’s representative of the International Game Fish Association.

“They move up the river in shoals and the fishing can be outstanding,” he says.

“The threadfin is a personal favourite of mine. They are a peculiar-looking fish with a semi-transparent, almost shark-like nose and four pairs of long filaments below the pectoral fins. Their large and deeply-forked tail gives you a hint of what can be expected when they are hooked.”

Prize catch For FlyCastaway’s Gerhard Laubscher, however, it is the tarpon, also known as silver kings, which make Angola special.

“You just don’t find them in the size and quantities that you find them in Angola,” he says. “For a fly fisherman, the tarpon is the one.”

First caught off the Florida Quays in the 1950s, tarpon are one of the oldest species of fish found today. Growing up to two metres long and weighing hundreds of pounds, they are known in angling terms as a prize catch.

Tarpon can be found between October and July, but the main season for the larger fish is between November and February, and they have been known to swim as far as 80km up the River Kwanza. “It’s always been said that the biggest tarpon were in West Africa, so we decided to go to Angola to have a look for ourselves,” says Laubscher. “When we got here and caught some, it was pretty amazing. One of them must have been over 200lbs which, if we had killed it to be weighed, would definitely have been a world record.”

However, just as Laubscher and Nicholson agree on the quality of the fishing in Angola, they are also united in their concern for the future of the fishing stock due to an increase in illegal netting which is depleting fish numbers and threat-

ening their survival.

“For Angola to benefit both economically and environmentally from sport fishing and ecotourism, such areas will require urgent protection from over-fishing, the removal of mangroves, and an end to poaching and polluting,” says Nicholson.

“Illegal netting inside the rivers and around most river mouths is rapidly depleting stocks in areas where fish congregate. It is also preventing the natural movement of wildlife, game fish and their forage baitfish, and indiscriminately killing protected and endangered species like turtles.”

Laubscher adds: “You’ve got people netting who were once doing it on a subsistence basis, but now they are doing it commercially and it is causing real problems. The legislation is there against netting but it is happening more and more and if it does not stop, then these species aren’t going to survive.

“Fishing tourism is worth a lot of money to Angola. It is a positive thing for the country, so I hope it can continue.”

User’s guide

Fishing tackle is not readily available in Angola and anglers are advised to come totally prepared with spares and a variety of lures and jigs.

Angolan Adventure Safaris offers accommodation, tours and fishing trips around Angola: www.aasafaris.com FlyCastaway arranges trips to Angola: www.flycastaway.com

AUTUMN 2009 35

www.FlyCastaway.com/Gerhard Laubscher

Dale C. Spartas/CORBIS

Paul Nicklen

www.FlyCastaway.com/Gerhard Laubscher

You just don’t find tarpon in the size and quantities that you find them in Angola

Sonangol news briefing H

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Oil Minister José Maria Botellho de Vasconcelos meets António Órfão, head of Sonagás

Filda success Nearly 700 exhibitors from 28 countries took part in the 2009 Luanda International Fair in July. Tens of thousands of people attended the six-day event, known by its Portuguese acronym Filda, which was themed around agriculture and agricultural industry. Exhibitors came from all over the world including Portugal, Brazil, Germany, Spain, Japan, South Africa, France and China. There were six pavilions spread across the site near Viana, and in addition to the exhibitions, there were a number of symposiums and conferences on agriculture and national reconstruction. Energy

companies shared a special pavilion which featured stands from Sonangol, Angola LNG, BP, Chevron, Esso and Total, among others. In the Angolan pavilion, local producers exhibited their food and drinks and there were experts on hand from Angola’s National Coffee Institute (Inca) and other governmental agro agencies.

Francisca do Espírito Santo, governor of Luanda, opened the event, accompanied by a number of top-level ministers including the Minister of Agriculture, Pedro Canga, and Minister of Economy, Manuel Nunes Jnr. Yann Arthus-Bertrand/CORBIS

GCI

alfway through Angola’s first year at the helm of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec), there has been some good news about the price of oil.

When Angola took the presidency of the cartel in January, prices were near $30 a barrel, and as a result Opec implemented production cuts which meant less income for Angola.

Yet by the middle of the year, the price had risen to $70 a barrel, a level which Angola Oil Minister José Maria Botelho de Vasconcelos feels is good for everyone. “I believe the current prices satisfy both consumers and producers,” he says.

“The Opec goals are being met and I think that if by the end of the year prices remain at the $70 to $75 level, that will be positive for the economy.”

Opec controls more than a third of the world’s crude-oil production and over the course of the past year has agreed to cut output to counter a slide in prices.

In 2008, Angola was producing 2 million barrels per day (bpd) and briefly overtook Nigeria as sub-Saharan Africa’s largest oil producer.

Under Opec-enforced cuts, its output is now 1.656 million bpd. Angola has had to readjust its budget and reduce public spending to accommodate the fall in oil income.

Botelho de Vasconcelos is reportedly negotiating an increase in Angola’s quota within Opec.

New office Sonangol has opened a new office in the Ivory Coast, in a bid to further develop bilateral co-operation in the oil sector. Sonangol is involved in a new refinery due to open there soon. Gilberto Buta Lutukuta, Angolan ambassador to the Ivory Coast, Mali and Burkina Faso, said that Angola and the Ivory Coast enjoyed good relations in a number of areas.

Abidjan, Ivory Coast

NEWS

Norwegian deal

Mosquito money

Angola and Norway have signed a memorandum of understanding for the development of an integrated project for hydropower and aluminium production.

The deal was inked by Emanuela Vieira Lopes, Angolan Energy Minister, and Arvid Moss, the deputy chairman of the Norwegian firm Hydro. Vieira Lopes said: “This will involve the implementation of an integrated project for two hydroelectric centrals with an indicative capacity of between 750 and 1000 megawatts and electricity conveying lines.”

The ExxonMobil Foundation has donated $1 million to USAID, the US Agency for International Development, taking its total funding of the organisation to $3 million. USAID, working through the American president’s Malaria Initiative, is collaborating with the Angolan government to reduce the number of malaria deaths in Angola. The initiative includes the distribution of bed nets, the provision of testing kits, anti-malarial medication, community education and the training of health professionals across the country. Malaria prevention is a key priority for the ExxonMobil Foundation which has in total given $6 million in the last two years to fight malaria in Angola.

Angola LNG has begun building the gas pipe which will link the offshore oil blocks with the new liquefied natural gas plant in Soyo. The pipe will be 25km long and take 18 months to construct – work which is being carried out offshore by Acergy and onshore by Spie. It will link offshore blocks 0, 1, 2, 14, 15, 17 and 18 to the LNG plant onshore in Soyo in Zaire province, northern Angola. There will be three strands to the pipe with fibre optics fitted to electronically control the pressure and temperature and to detect breakdowns. The project is a shared venture between BP Exploration (13.6 per cent), Chevron (36.4 per cent), ExxonMobil (13.6 per cent), Sonangol (22.8 per cent) and Total (13.6 per cent).

iStockphoto

Big tube

Early oil Chevron’s Angolan subsidiary Cabinda Gulf Oil Company (CABGOC) and its partners have begun crude-oil production ahead of schedule on the Mafumeira Norte project in Block 0.

Located in 160 feet of water about 15 miles off the Angolan coastline, the project is the first-phase development of the Mafumeira Field located in Area A of Block 0. The project is being commercialised through 14 wells to the existing Kungulo water-injection platform and is expected to reach maximum total production of 30,000 barrels of crude oil and 30 million cubic feet per day of natural gas in 2011.

Sonangol Shipping, a Sonangol subsidiary, has launched a new maritime training centre in Sumbe, Kwanza Sul. The Centro de Treinamento Marítimo will have classrooms, laboratories, libraries, a research centre, a mechanical engineering base and house nautical instruments. There will also be a residential area and a dedicated fire-prevention unit at the centre in Kicombo which will train Sonangol’s maritime staff.

It is the first project of its kind to be developed in the region and is due to open in two years.

Photolibrary

Shipping ahoy

The engineering, procurement, construction and installation contract for the Mafumeira Norte platform was awarded to Sonamet (Lobito), a joint venture between Sonangol and Acergy, marking the first time Sonamet was awarded such a contract. The fabrication of the platform was completed at Sonamet’s Lobito yard in southern Angola. George Kirkland, executive vice president for Chevron Global Upstream and Gas, said: “This underscores Chevron’s commitment to growing its resource base in West Africa and delivering on our robust queue of major capital projects.”

AUTUMN 2009 37

Kamene M Traรงa

Enlightened view: Vicente Inรกcio is responsible for health and safety

38 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

NEWS

Order and progress Sonangol is employing the latest health and safety measures to keep the company operating at the highest standards

O

il companies are by the very nature of their work involved in high-risk situations. From the engineer working offshore using high-pressure equipment, to the person driving the forklift truck in the local warehouse, there are countless daily risks involved in all operations.

Sonangol has strict policies and guidelines to ensure safety at work, which include operational discipline, work permits, confined-space entry, working at heights, lifting operations, excavations, traffic safety, drugs and alcohol and environmental awareness. “Quality, health, safety and environment (QHSE) are core Sonangol values and the management of these values is essential for the sustainable development of Angolan oil resources,” says Manuel Vicente, Sonangol’s chief executive.

Commitment To underline Sonangol’s commitment to QHSE, the company is in the process of implementing a 14-step management programme called Progressa-Q. This is designed to cover every element of Sonangol’s work from office to rig, and from classroom to boardroom. The aim is to eliminate workplace accidents, reduce emissions and discharges, ensure safe products and services and open communications with others about health and safety programmes and performance.

Leading the implementation of Progressa-Q is Vicente Inácio, Sonangol’s QHSE manager. “The Sonangol group is committed to reaching AUTUMN 2009 39

40 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

Photolibrary

Terry Vine

Sonangol

Safety in the workplace is a top priority at Sonangol

NEWS

”

excellence in the management of quality, health, safety and environment to become a leader in Africa in this domain,” he says.

“QHSE is an integral part of our values and is essential to the success of our business because it promotes solutions that effectively reduce the occurrence of accidents.

“Line managers are responsible for the implementation and maintenance of the system, but all workers are responsible for the many activities necessary to protect themselves, the company assets, the environment, the clients and the wider community,” he adds.

Standards Progressa-Q was created by international consultants Det Norske Veritas which worked with Sonangol to build an integrated management system. All Sonangol subsidiaries will follow the plan to ensure continuity of the highest standards in safety across the organisation and many are already making good headway through the implementation.

Progressa-Q is based on three key internationally-recognised safety standards: ISO 9001 and ISO 1401 from the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO), the world’s largest developer and publisher of international standards, and OHSAS 18001 from the US-based Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

“The Angolan government has issued different decrees for QHSE at work, and environment decrees – and we have to follow these to comply with the law,” says Inácio. “But we want to do more than just comply with the law; we want this integrated management system because we are an international company and we are operating all over the world. This is a tool

Vicente Inácio

Vicente Inácio, QHSE manager

which gives a company a better image. It creates a positive culture of safety and environment in the company and this gives more respect to the client, the government, the public.”

Training As well as each department in the subsidiaries instigating the QHSE plans and strategies, part of achieving the standards comes from high-quality training which, thanks to its subsidiary Essa, Sonangol is able to partly organise in-house.

Essa (Empresa de Serviços de Sondagens de Angola) was established to provide professional, technical and safety training for all of the oil industry, not just Sonangol staff. Based in Cacuaco, near the Luanda refinery, the Essa centre is one of Africa’s largest offshore training establishments. It boasts modern conference facilities, a large training pool with a launch ramp for boats, an underground viewing room with a large glass window, a full-scale replica of a helicopter cabin for underwater escape exercises and an advanced fire-fighting training area.

Courses on offer include transporting dangerous goods, well control and blow-out prevention, confined-space entry, helicopter underwater-escape training, scaffold-inspection, rigging and slinging, first aid, fire fighting, defensive driving, forklift operation and chemical safety.

“People look to Sonangol, and they can see that the company is doing something positive in respect of QHSE,” says Inácio. “All Sonangol managers have QHSE included in their performance evaluations.

This is in order to become a more robust company and to show that from the top down we are serious about health and safety at work.”

Kamene M Traça

“

The Sonangol group is committed to reaching excellence in the management of quality, health, safety and environment to become a leader in Africa in this domain

Sonangol’s quality, health, safety and environment manager.

Age 52, married with five children.

Studied mechanical engineering at Agostinho Neto University in Angola, completing his degree in Portugal, and then studied petroleum engineering at the French Petroleum Institute in France.

Has worked with Sonangol for 24 years. Since 2005 has been QHSE manager. Before that was in exploration and production and worked on the plan for the new refinery in Lobito.

Prior to working for Sonangol, worked for Angolan coffee producers Ginga Café.

AUTUMN 2009 41

NEWS

LAB FAB The inauguration of a high-tech laboratory for oil products in Luanda is a sign of the maturity of the hydrocarbons industry in Angola

S

Pictures: Kamene M Traça

onangol’s Central Laboratory opened only this year, but already its director hopes it will become a reference point in sub-Saharan Africa. “We have no limits to the objectives we want to achieve,” says Rosária de Fátima Castro. “We want and we’re heading towards internationalisation.”

The lab is located in a two-storey building a few kilometres north of the Port of Luanda. The facilities it offers includes the ability to analyse seabed sediments and to check on the quality control of all kinds of all oil products.

“This is like my other child,” says Mrs Castro, who spearheaded the project. But while it was a dream come true to see the lab finally in operation, she says there is always room for improvement. One major challenge is to achieve the internationally-respected ISO/IEC 17025 Standard.

Mrs Castro believes that providing a quality service is the golden rule to achieving recognition. The lab is equipped with the latest technology and, as well as helping with Sonangol’s exploration projects, it will also help other companies with their needs.

“We have set up the analytical structure to support Sonangol’s internal needs and those of our partners,” she says.

From left to right, the lab team at work

42 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

NEWS

Rosรกria de Fรกtima Castro

Director, Sonangol Central Laboratory.

Married with two children, aged 19 and 23.

Joined Sonangol in 1978 and was involved in laboratory-related work.

Graduated from Agostinho Neto University in 1989 with a degree in geology .

AUTUMN 2009 43

44 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

NEWS

TOP OF THE

LEAGUE

Pictures: Superleague Formula

Sonangol has begun to sponsor Superleague Formula, a sporting craze that links football and motor racing âž”

AUTUMN 2009 45

NEWS

W

here on earth can you say that FC Basel of Switzerland is better than Italy’s AC Milan, or that Anderlecht of Belgium is higher in the league than France’s Olympique

Lyonnais?

The answer is that you can in Superleague Formula, a new style of motor racing that involves some of the world’s top football clubs. The league contains 18 high-performance cars, in which professional drivers race in the colours of 18 of the world’s biggest soccer teams. The sport is now in its second year and this season is sponsored by Sonangol.

After three rounds, Liverpool FC were top of the league, followed by FC Basel and Tottenham Hotspur. The other clubs taking part come from all over Europe and Brazil. Superleague Formula brings footballing rivalries to a new sporting theatre – the racetrack.

The format of Superleague Formula is innovative. There are six rounds in total, each at one of Europe’s top racing tracks. During each round there are two races. In order to make the race a little like football, which has two halves of 45 minutes each, each Superleague contest is similarly timed. After 44 minutes, once the leader has passed the start/finish line there is just one more lap to go. This means that the length of each race is about 45 minutes.

46 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

The starting grid of the first race is determined by the results of a qualifying session. The starting grid of the second race of each round is the reverse of the first race. So, if you win the first race, you are at the back of the grid for the second, and if you are last in the first race, you are in pole position for the second. This makes the second race very exciting as the fastest riders must push up from the back.

All drivers race in cars that have the same technical specifications, which insist on a 750-horsepower V12 engine. The winning driver of each race wins 50 points, the second-placed driver 45 and the third 40. The points for the remaining positions are 36-32-2926-23-20-18-16-14-12-10-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1.

Points go to a league table and the team with the most points at the end of the season will be crowned Superleague Formula by Sonangol champions. In addition, the best team in each round wins 333,000.

Superleague Formula president Alex Andreu says he is delighted that Sonangol has decided to sponsor the sport: “Sonangol is an ambitious company with global aspirations, so it’s a perfect match for Superleague Formula, which has very similar objectives. Over the next two years we will work closely together to develop both of our brands.”

This page: Images from the first round of races, held at Magny-Cours racecourse in France. Below, Liverpool FC driver AdriĂĄn VallĂŠs celebrates winning the first race.

AUTUMN 2009 47

NEWS

League table...after three rounds

Drivers

Pos.

No

RACING TEAM

Club

Driver

1

21

Liverpool FC

217

Liverpool FC

Adrián Vallés

2

10

FC Basel

207

3

19

Tottenham Hotspur

196

Sevilla FC

E.G uerrieri

4

3

AC

154

Tottenham Hotspur

Craig Dolby

5

16

FC Porto

146

6

14

Corinthians

139

FC Basel

Max Wissel

7

6

Al-Ain

8

8

RSC

AC Milan

Giorgio Pantano

9

24

FC Midtjylland

122

RSC Anderlecht

Yelmer Buurman

10

15

Atlético de Madrid

120

11

17

Rangers C

118

Olympiacos

Davide Rigon

12

9

Olympiacos

118

Flamengo

Enrique Bernoldi

13

22

AS

110

14

2

Sporting Clube de Portugal

110

Corinthians

Antonio Pizzonia

15

4

Galatasaray

101

16

7

Flamengo

98

Galatasaray

Duncan Tappy

17

69

Olympique yonnais L

82

Atlético de Madrid

Ho-Pin Tung

18

5

PSV Eindhoven

59

19

18

Sevilla FC *

28

FC Porto

Tristan Gommendy

FC Midtjylland

Kasper Andersen

Rangers FC

John Martin

AS Roma

Jonathan Kennard

Olympique Lyonnnais

Nelson Panciatici

Sporting Clube de Portugal

Pedro Petiz

PSV Eindhoven

Dominick Muermans

n

TOTAL

Mila

*

135

derlecht An

122

F

oma R

* Sevilla replaced Al-Ain after two rounds

www.superleagueformula.com

Timetable 1

Magny-Cours

France

June 27/28, 2009

2

Zolder

Belgium

July 18/19, 2009

3

Donington Park

UK

August 1/2, 2009

4

Estoril

Portugal

September 5/6, 2009

5

Monza

Italy

October 3/4, 2009

6

Circuito de Jarama

Spain

November 7/8, 2009

48 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

This page: Images from the second round of races, held at Zolder in Belgium. Above, Liverpool driver AdriĂĄn VallĂŠs shakes the bubbly after confirming his position at the top of the table, after two third places.

AUTUMN 2009 49

CONGO

e

Th

ngo Co

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

Cabinda

Zaire

The

Uíge

o ng wa K

Bengo Kwanza Norte Luanda

l ka The Lu

The

Lunda Norte

Kalandula Falls

Kw

Kapanda Dam

za an

Kambambe Dam

a

Lunda Sul

Malanje

K

Kwanza Sul

a as

i

e Th

Bié Huambo Benguela Moxico

Th e Kuan do

Huíla

The

Namibe

K

e Th

o ang

Kuando Kubango

Za m zi be

e Cune Th e

50 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

n

NB Illustrations/David Atkinson

ub

Cunene

ZAMBIA

NAMIBIA BOTSWANA

THE BIG PICTURE:

RIVERS

T

wo of the greatest rivers in Africa – the Congo and the Zambezi – pass through Angolan territory. The Congo forms the border in the north with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) before the river flows into the Atlantic. The source of the Zambezi is in Zambia, but the river then runs for 150 miles through Angola before re-joining Zambia and heading towards Mozambique where it enters the Indian Ocean. Here we look at five of the most important rivers that rise in Angola

The Kwanza, 886km The Kwanza empties into the Atlantic 60km to the south of Luanda and has, famously, given its name to the Angolan currency, the kwanza, as well as being a symbol of Angolan unity.

In his poem Ladies of Another Time, Mário António wrote: “The water of the Kwanza cannot stop flowing, it is always other and renewed.”

This great river is navigable for some 192km from the coast as far as the Kambambe Dam and it was along its waters that the Portuguese first penetrated the interior of northern Angola. Some 50 fish species have been identified here and world-class game fish such as the tarpon can be found in the lower reaches. Other creatures known from these waters are the African manatee (pictured), the giant otter shrew and the African water rat.

On a tributary, the Lukala, are the Kalandula Falls, relatively unknown by tourists yet one of the largest and most spectacular waterfalls in Africa. The massive Kapanda Dam in Malanje province was completed in 2004 and provides power and water for irrigation.

fierce-looking tiger fish which has alarming protruding teeth.

The Kasai, 2153km The source of the Kasai is near the border of Moxico and Bié provinces, near what Angolan writer Pepetela has called the “fabulous cradle of the Chokwe”, one of the major ethnic groups of Angola. It then flows eastwards and then north along the Angolan-DRC border. This is a remote, unpopulated area and the Kasai and its tributaries have an incredibly rich variety of fish with over 200 species recorded, many of them known only to a particular location.

Some 60 species of frogs have been noted in the river system. The Kwango (1,100km) is a large tributary of the Kasai and forms the eastern border with the DRC in Malanje and Uíge provinces.

The Kasai flows into the Congo in the DRC. The Kuando, 731km The Kuando rises near Mount Tembo in central Angola and drains southeast into the vast Linyanti Swamp, then turns sharply east to trickle into the Zambezi. The river flows through the Coutada Pública do Luiana reserve, which has a great diversity of birds and reptiles. It was badly depleted of wildlife during the civil war, before which it had elephants, black rhinos, ostriches, lions, hyenas and hippos. Of the many species of fish that live in the Kuando, one is the

The Kubango, 1600km The Kubango rises 35km to the east of Huambo and runs southeast until the border with Namibia before it heads into Botswana where it discharges into the Okavango Swamp, the largest inland delta in the world. When the heavy rains fall on the Angolan highlands, the water eventually pours south into the Okavango, flooding the dry Kalahari Desert and providing forage for vast herds of animals and 450 bird species and allowing fish to spawn prolifically in the flooded areas.

The Cunene, 945km The Cunene also rises not far from Huambo, heading south alongside the Bicuari and Mupa National Parks. Before it reaches the sea, the river travels through a deep gorge between the Zebra and Baynes mountains and rushes over the 30m high Epupa Falls.

Finally, it passes into the Namibe Desert before reaching the Atlantic. The Cunene is one of the few rivers in this region that flows all year round. One fish that is endemic to the Cunene is the Namib happy (pictured).

AUTUMN 2009 51