₦airaland Forum

udezue:
STUPID ASS. Man your STUPIDITY KNOWS NO BOUNDS. shiiit.

Financial Times | October 4 2008

By Tom Burgis in Johannesburg

Luanda --- Angola, one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, has launched an ambitious plan to exploit both its fertile soils and high global food prices to attract $6bn (€4.3bn, £3.4bn) in agriculture investments over the next five years.

As it emerges from one of Africa’s most protracted civil wars, Angola’s abundant oil and diamonds have attracted febrile interest from foreign investors. Yet the talks under way with several private-sector farming giants are subject to a host of obstacles, ranging from clogged ports and red tape to corruption fears and competing claims to land rights.

With arable land of 35m hectares - an area the size of Germany - Angola used to feed its own people as well as satisfy world demand for coffee, sisal, bananas and sugar before the outbreak of a conflict that raged for nearly three decades.

Today it imports more than half its food and only 10 per cent of productive land is cultivated. Keen to diversify the economy away from the oil that has brought rollercoaster expansion since a 2002 peace accord and reduce dependence on foreign food, the government is in the early stages of discussions with leading agriculture investors from Brazil, Spain, Canada, the US, Argentina and its former colonial power Portugal, Joaquím Duarte Gomes, head of planning at the agriculture ministry, told the Financial Times.

“World food prices have jumped,” he said in a recent interview. “Angola can make food for the region and the world.”

Lonrho, the London-listed Africa conglomerate, is seeking finance for a 20,000 ha agriculture project in Angola as part of an “aggressive” strategy to acquire 10 times that area of productive land across the continent, said Dave Lenigas, executive chairman.

Chiquita Brands, the Ohio-based banana giant, arrived in March, confirming a growing trend by western food companies to switch operations to Africa to circumvent European Union tariffs on imports from elsewhere. In August, the Angolan state news agency quoted Beijing’s ambassador to Luanda saying China was considering ways to boost rice production in the southern African country where it has already signed a multi-billion dollar oil-forinfrastructure deal.

Some two-thirds of Angolans eke out a living from the land. But agriculture accounts for only 9 per cent of gross domestic product.

The $6bn target by 2013 - compared with total non-oil foreign direct investment of $924m last year - is ambitious. Business people in Luanda complain of graft and labyrinthine bureaucracy. It takes 119 days to set up a company, according to the World Bank, more than double the regional average.

The agricultural investment drive faces controversy, after a warning from the United Nations of the risk of “neo-colonialism” as food importers scramble to secure farmland overseas. Incidents of forced expropriations in diamond areas highlight the perils of a programme that will seek to secure - for outside investors - vast tracts of land to which the state, tribal leaders and Angolans displaced in the war all claim rights.

http://farmlandgrab.org/2529

UNITED NATIONS --- According to the Angola’s Minister of Energy Water, Mr. Botelho de Vasconcelos, Angola’s “Water for All” project is on track to provide expanded drinking water supplies to the country’s rural areas.   

Specifically, the ambitious national project will seek to provide a 20% increase in water supply each year with the goal of enabling 80% of the country’s population to gain access to treated drinking water by the year 2012.

The initial phase of the drinking water abstraction, treatment and distribution system is slated to begin functioning by next April 2009. Cabiri commune located in the Bengo province was selected to host the initial starting phase of the project.

Due to its impressive capacity goals, the “Water for All” project is attracting the attention of the international community.

The project is being implemented by a commission that is co-ordinated by the Minister of  Energy and Water.

The commission includes the Ministers of Agriculture and Rural Development, of Industry, of Health, and of Territory Administration as well as the secretary of the Cabinet Council.

The decision by the government to implement the “Water for All” project undertaking was driven by the steadfast acknowledgement that access of a clean reliable drinking water supply not only is one of the fundamental conditions for the health and well-being of country’s population, but it is a significant contributor to the ongoing sustainable economic and social development of the country.

http://www.maximsnews.com/news20080326angolawaterforall10803260802.htm

The government started to build houses under the Angola Youth programme, which aims to build one million social housing units by 2012. Following the September elections, the Ministry of Urban Affairs and the Environment became the Ministry of Urban Affairs and Housing. In October the UN World Habitat Day celebrations were held in Luanda. During these celebrations the government undertook to commit more than 10 per cent of oil income to social housing.

There were fewer reports of forced evictions than in previous years. Some of those forcibly evicted were reportedly re-housed. There were also reports that the government planned to re-house the families forcibly evicted in previous years from their homes in Cambamba I, Cambamba II and Cidadania neighbourhoods, but this had not happened by the end of 2008.

http://thereport.amnesty.org/en/regions/africa/angola

The government started to build houses under the Angola Youth programme, which aims to build one million social housing units by 2012. Following the September elections, the Ministry of Urban Affairs and the Environment became the Ministry of Urban Affairs and Housing. In October the UN World Habitat Day celebrations were held in Luanda. During these celebrations the government undertook to commit more than 10 per cent of oil income to social housing.

There were fewer reports of forced evictions than in previous years. Some of those forcibly evicted were reportedly re-housed. There were also reports that the government planned to re-house the families forcibly evicted in previous years from their homes in Cambamba I, Cambamba II and Cidadania neighbourhoods, but this had not happened by the end of 2008.

http://thereport.amnesty.org/en/regions/africa/angola