In opaque and unregulated financial markets, there can be strong incentives for banks to provide loans even when the appropriate guaranties or assessments are lacking. This is part of the Mozambican debt story, according to NAI researchers Navarra and Rodrigues. In this case, the consequences are most likely to be borne by Mozambican people, strongly affecting their living conditions.
With contributions from both Mozambican and non-Mozambican scholars of multi-disciplinary backgrounds and approaches, this book provides a range of new perspectives on how Mozambique has been characterized by profound changes in its rural communities and places.
Despite the persistence of poverty in Mozambique, significant investments have been made in rural areas in extractive industry or agribusiness, resulting in both the transformation of these areas, and a new set of tensions and conflicts related to land tenure and population resettlement. Meanwhile, the Mozambican rural landscape is one dominated by smallholders whose livelihoods depend on both farming and non-farming activities, and who are often extremely vulnerable to shocks and pressure over resources. The emergence of new civil society organizations has led to clashes with in the interests of local political, administrative and economic powers, creating fresh social conflicts.
Transformations of the Rural Spaces in Mozambique examines the process of transformation across a range of settings; from the impacts of large-scale industries and the transformation of agriculture, to relations between state and non-state actors and issues related to land.
This article examines the transformations to urban social stratification inAngola during the last decades. The analysis is centered on the indicators of socialdifference throughout these years: the racial criteria of the colonial times; the politicalprecedence in the first years after independence; and the multi-criteria of thepostwar period. Based on research conducted before and after the end of the civilwar in 2002, the article explores the construction and reconfiguration of urban societytoday, providing evidence of increased social mobility—despite the poverty anddeeper inequalities—and of the importance of economic and residential criteria.
Climate-related phenomena historically have had an impact on the lives of urbandwellers of Luanda and Maputo. Recently, however, urban expansion and congestionof different sorts, aggravated by climate change impacts, call for renewedresponses on the part of residents. Rising sea levels and harder impacts of floodingare the most disturbing issues in the two coastal capitals, demanding both institutionalresponses and strategies of urban residents, particularly the most vulnerable.Based on qualitative data collected in Luanda and Maputo, this article describes howurban residents aim to mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change and bydoing so, shape the cities they live in and their environment.
The Okavango region is currently part of a transboundary project extending to three neighboringcountries—Angola, Namibia, and Botswana. This article discusses the unequal trajectory and presentconditions for such cross-border cooperation, with a particular focus on Angola. Angola’s disadvantageousposition is above all due to the lasting effects of war that adversely hindered the developmentof structures and resources to engage in such joint programs. The central argument is that theinequalities pose particular challenges to the country to accompany the pace of the neighboringcountries. The article looks at the fragilities focusing on institutional resources, Angolan policy background,existing dedicated institutions, and human resources, as they are major concerns for post-warreconstruction. On the other hand, it poses questions regarding resilience effects on local levellivelihoods and on the future environmental management of the Okavango. This article is based ona literature and documental review and on data from fieldwork where local communities have to relymore heavily on the available natural resources in absence of others.
In São Tomé and Príncipe, both the size of the informal economy and the scope of the mechanisms of organization and representation are little known. A research conducted recently showed that the almost always limited and irregular incomes generated in this sector are also associated with precarity and a lack of social protection mechanisms. While initiatives led by the state and supported by international funders positioned unions as privileged organizations for representing and supporting the workers in this sector, the limited results generated opportunities for the creation of sectoral bottom-up initiatives. The discussion is then focused on the areas addressed by the initiatives of specific sectors and types of activity – taxi and motorbike drivers and money exchangers – comparing the outcomes with those of the unions in terms of increased social protection and representation.
Since its independence in 1975, Angola’s capital Luanda has beengoing through deep processes of demographic, economic, socialand physical transformations. In this article, apart from introducing the case study of private condominiums in the general discussion on urban studies in the Global South, we focus on the dynamics of transformations regarding housing for the mid/upper strata, providing the background for the emergence and recent expansion ofgated communities/condominiums, a phenomenon that has acquired major importance in the recent decades in Luanda. The specialised literature relates the demand for and multiplication of these residential structures in Africa with issues such as the search for safety associated with demonstrations of exclusive lifestyles. In the case of Luanda, the authors found––through a case study and qualitative data collected among residents and non-residents of condominiums––that, contrary to the results from other studies, condominiums in Luanda are essentially sought after primarily for functional reasons such as access to infrastructure and better living.
The training of Angolan police officers under various international cooperation programs contributes to the construction of an original policing model in the country. The end of the war, the creation of training facilities in the country and the development of public policies favourable to the development of the national police lead to the renewal of the sector based on a model in a way hybrid as a result of various influences progressively built over the years. This article analyses these changes based on data collected in Angola as part of a wider research about the context of international cooperation in the area of training ofpolice officers.
Luanda, the capital of Angola, has recently been subjected to extraordinary changes, supported by increased wealth and investments associated with the end of the war. The ideas of modernity that clearly stand out are deeply rooted in the city’s configuration and reconfiguration over the years. They inform not only the modernising perspectives and philosophy of policymakers and investors but also those of the urban dwellers. Often, however, the imagined modernity and its benefits do not match the lived realities. This chapter makes reference to the evolution of the city, emphasising the differences between main periods and identifying the underlining strategies in terms of inclusions and exclusions. The conclusions presented, based on empirical and documentary research, point to shifting strategies of urban inclusion and changing categories of the excluded.
The Kwanhama, whose ancient kingdom occupies a vast area in Angola and in Namibia, are one of the African cases of people partitioned by the establishment of colonial borders. This division, along with the profound transformations of the last decades in the region – war, displacement and conditioned circulation – shaped the way a common identity has acquired different features in both countries. In the (under-researched) Angolan side, cross-border identity has progressively concentrated on the idea of a split between the two countries, as the Kwanhama king, Mandume, is believed to be buried on both sides of the border; and at the same time on the notion of a common belonging across the border. Based on data collected through fieldwork interviews in the Cunene province in Angola, this article adds to the discussion of the apparently ambiguous ideas of partitioned and shared notions of belonging.
This paper analyses individual pathways of Angolan commissioned officers educated in Portugal, focusing specifically on their return to their country of origin and on the features of their reintegration into professional life. It aims at contributing to the discussion of mobility and migration, discussing issues of qualification and circulation of ‘brains’ between developed and developing countries. The analysis is based on quantitative and qualitative data obtained by conducting field research. It calls for the elaboration of strategies to deal simultaneously with the individual, the organisational and the societal conditions and consequently provides an important viewpoint of the processes of transformation of the Angolan society and institutions.
For most of the latter half of the 20th century, war carved the contours of settlement and mining activity in Angola. The aim of this article is twofold: first, to contrast migrant andurban livelihoods during the war, distinguishing between artisanal guerrilla diamond-diggingsettlements and the refuge ‘government cities’, and, secondly, to compare recent patternsof migration, livelihoods, mineral production and aspirations among urban residents. This article focuses on four urban settlements in the Lundas’ diamond-producing provinces, tracing wartime diamond growth in boom towns and cantonment in government cities. Post-war urban regeneration is characterised by investment in formal planned cities, and constraints on the informal mining boom towns and their garimpo artisanal miners. Questions are posed regarding these settlements’ population movements, livelihoods, residents’ conceptions of urban life and their quest for modernity. Amidst the multiplicity of wartime legacies and the envisaged reconstruction, renewed perceptions of urban life are increasingly focused on non-mining livelihoods.
This study provides a broad perspective of the main trends in intra-African migration,emphasising its regional variations and complex drivers. The analysis is focussed on mappingand describing the structures – routes, hubs, settlements and sites of migration within the continent – as well as identifying the relevant infrastructures that facilitate these movements – ranging from road, railway and transportation networks to social connectivities and brokerage. The analysis not only of spaces and flows, but also of infrastructure within these networks shows that there is a multiplicity of interrelations, interconnections and interdependences that need to be captured and understood in order to address both the potential and problems for intra-African migration. By grasping the ‘big picture’ of intra-African migration, policies and activities generated by both the African Union and the European Union will be capable of providing comprehensively integrated and tailored responses. Recommendations are directed towards: improving knowledge of the many structures and infrastructures, along with their articulations and functioning; identifying the negative and positive aspects of migration conducive to sustainable development; and addressing the present Africa-Europe polarisation of views through diplomacy and monitoring.
After nearly 30 years of civil war, Angola gained peace in 2002. The country’s diamond and oil wealth affords the national government the means to pursue economic reconstruction and urban development. However, in the diamond-producing region of Lunda Sul, where intense fighting between MPLA and UNITA forces was waged, the legacy of war lingers on in the form of livelihood uncertainty and uneven access to the benefits of the state’s urban development programmes. There are three main interactive agents of urban change: the Angolan state, the mining corporations, and not least urban residents. The period has been one of shifting alignments of responsibility for urban housing, livelihoods and welfare provisioning. Beyond the pressures of post-war adjustment, the wider context of global capital investment and labour market restructuring has introduced a new surge of corporate mining investment and differentiated patterns of prosperity and precarity in Lunda Sul.
With nearly five centuries of history and major war-related impacts in the second half of the twentieth century, Luanda has recently been subject to outstanding changes that make the capital of Angola an important urban case study for Africa. Today, the city is not only an evident materialization of the oil wealth being channelled into reconstruction after decades of civil war, but also reflects and translates the diverse perspectives of its residents and policy makers regarding the city and urban life. As it is reconfigured, it also transforms the mentalities and daily lives of urban dwellers and policy stakeholders, reinforcing the idea of improvement and modernity. In order to better understand the processes of physical and social change that have taken place within the city and the intertwined logics, this article makes reference to three distinct key stages of its history, pointing out their main features and the transformations that have occurred: the colonial period of sociospatial dualization (1576-1974), the period between independence and the last peace agreement (1975-2002) of profound and extensive urban mixture, and the post-war period (2002-present) marked by accelerated sociospatial reconfigurations. More specifically, it analyses the very recent urban phenomena, the urban plans and new urban features, discussing the correlations between physical transformations and the rationalities and perspectives that accompany them, both of the urban planners and of the urban dwellers, discussing the implications in terms of new inclusions and exclusions in the city.
Starting from temporary settlements turning into permanent urban centers, this paper discusses the transformations taking place through the process of so-called ‘boomtown’ urbanization in Central and Southern Africa. Based on data collected in Angola, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the paper identifies the different conditions for migration and settlement and the complex socio-economic, spatial, as well as political transformations produced by the fast growth and expansion of boomtowns. Different historical and contemporary processes shape boomtown urbanization in Africa, from colonial territorial governance to large- and small-scale mining or dynamics of violence and forced displacement. As centers of attraction, opportunities, diversified livelihoods and cultures for aspiring urbanities, boomtowns represent an interesting site from which to investigate rural-urban transformation in a context of resource extraction and conflict/post conflict governance. They equally represent potential catalyzing sites for growth, development and stability, hence deserving not only more academic but also policy attention. Based on the authors’ long-term field experience in the countries under study, the analysis draws on ethnographic fieldwork data collected through observations as well as interviews and focus group discussions with key actors involved in the everyday shaping of boomtown urbanism. The findings point to discernible patterns of boomtown consolidation across these adjacent countries, which are a result of combinations of types of migration, migrants’ agency and the governance structures, with clear implications for urban policy for both makeshift and consolidating towns.