Located in Southern Africa at the border of the South Atlantic Ocean, Angola is a country that, despite its extensive oil and diamond reserves, struggles with severe poverty and hunger. Angola‘s violent 27-year civil war came to an end in 2002, and since then the government has been hard at work with multiple NGOs and citizen-led efforts to improve the nation’s economy and access the land’s remarkable agricultural potential. In doing so, the human development of Angola has been continuing at a consistent and assured pace. Here are 10 facts about hunger in Angola.

10 Facts About Hunger in Angola

1. With a score of 29.5 on the 2018 Global Hunger Index, Angola ranks 95 out of 119 countries, placing it in the serious level of risk category. This means the state of Angola has an inadequate food supply and a high rate of child mortality and undernutrition. While this rating may appear bleak, hunger in Angola has decreased dramatically since the year 2000, when the country received a hunger score of 65.6.
2. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has shifted in focus from emergency assistance towards long-term agricultural development and policy creation. This includes the Poverty Reduction Strategy, a policy framework dedicated to consolidating peace through the improvement of living conditions for vulnerable people. This shift is evidence of the country’s improvement in addressing the hunger of its inhabitants. Now that the organization may focus on engendering an environment with policy creation and education, Angola can have a future of economic health and food security.
3. Along with the Poverty Reduction Strategy, the FAO is currently working to provide technical support, food security, agricultural productivity and farming education. The organization is also applying a Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Plan to minimize the effects of climatic shock and climate change on the state’s many rural communities by increasing the government capacity to implement disaster risk reduction and management, facilitate the coordination of stakeholders to implement reduction and management and educate farmers and workers on the use of technologies and practices on reduction and management.
4. The symptoms of hunger in Angola have been on a downward trend in the recent decade, with the rates of child mortality, child wasting, child stunting and undernourishment all decreasing steadily. For child stunting, the percentage of children under five with stunted growth has decreased from 55 percent in 1995 to 30 percent in 2017. The many agricultural and political efforts in Angola to create profitable farms for rural communities and progressive policy creation emphasizing poverty reduction and food security have caused this decline.
5. While the availability and use of basic sanitation services have been increasing at a constant rate, the percentage of the population with access to safe drinking water has remained stagnant at around 49 percent. Access to clean water is one of the most important conditions for achieving hunger relief due to its necessity in healthy nutrition and impact on health, disease prevention and cleanliness.
6. In partnership with AGRINATURA, a group of European research organizations and universities that have been in operation for 30 years, the FAO has been creating multiple objectives to aid the issue of hunger. These include seeds cooperatives to commercialize seeds from 200 smallholder farmers; rice development, which aims to prepare and commercialize rice production; and rural entrepreneurship, which intends to provide business opportunities to agricultural entrepreneurs in Angola.
7. The World Food Programme has been working with Angola to aid the hunger of more than 70,000 refugees, many of whom are from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It provides full-ration food assistance and specialized nutritious foods for young children, pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers. It also offers air transportation to and from remote areas of the country.
8. AGRINATURA has also been working with Angolan farmers to tap the potential of agricultural coffee production. Angola was once a prominent coffee producer until the Angolan civil war. Since then, coffee production decreased dramatically. Increased production of the cash crop will aid the country’s economy and, as a result, help reduce the poverty and hunger of the Angolan people.
9. Though Angola has remarkable potential for agricultural development, the country’s agricultural GDP is only 10 percent of the national GDP. The government of Angola is currently prioritizing its agricultural sector with financial investments so that it can make use of the untapped potential and help Angolan citizens and refugees.
10. Ending the 10 facts about hunger in Angola is The Food, Agricultural and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network, an organization seeking the creation of longterm food, agricultural and natural resources policies. It is currently working in Angola with the United Nations, Angola’s government and private sector to promote poverty-reductionist agricultural policy, increase food security and promote sustainable agricultural development.

While Angola currently ranks in the bottom quarter of countries on the Global Hunger Index, these 10 facts about hunger in Angola and the country’s downward trend in poverty and hunger is incredibly assuring. With the continued work by the government, NGO’s and citizen-led efforts to create poverty-reductionist policy, move agricultural development forward and increase food security, hunger in Angola should continue to decline, and the nation should continue its path into becoming prosperous and secure.

– Jordan AbuAljazer
Photo: Flickr