Can Angola, the second largest oil producer in Sub-Saharan Africa, transform itself from a food insecure country to a regional food hub?

Walking around Luanda, the capital of Angola, it's easy to marvel at the large, modern buildings, but also to wonder why this oil-rich country has so many people begging for food in the streets. Besides being the second-largest oil producer in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), just behind Nigeria, Angola also has vast arable land, plentiful water resources, and good climatic conditions to produce enough food to not only feed its population but also to sell to other countries. But the reality we see on the ground is not what we expect. Despite the country importing a significant amount of food and agricultural goods – having spent around $3.5 billion on food import in 2023, primarily from the European Union, Brazil, and the United States – about one-third of Angolans are currently experiencing hunger and often go one or more days to bed without eating due to a lack of food.

As you get to know more about Angola, some of the reasons behind this dramatic reality become clear. Many people in the country are starving because Angola’s economy has been heavily reliant on oil extraction (>90% of exports), thus limiting the sources of income and the creation of new job opportunities for the people. In fact, Angola’s limited economic diversification has prevented other sectors from developing. Take the case of agriculture, for example, where the country only uses 10 percent of its massive agricultural potential, yet nearly half of the population is employed in this sector. Other reasons for food insecurity are that the country suffers from extreme inequality and most of the population is poor. We find that around a third of Angolans live in extreme poverty, on less than $2.15 per day (the international poverty line, 2017).

Unfortunately, children are the most affected by this food shortage, posing a serious threat to the country's future. While the younger generation will be the workforce needed to help diversify Angola's economy, four out of every ten children under the age of five (2 million children) suffer from chronic malnutrition today. What is even more surprising is that the stunting rate was at 43.6% in 2022, the 7^th highest in the world! And about half of the Angolan children are below the recommended height for their age – with one of the main consequences being the inability to reach their physical and cognitive potential. When you look at the overall numbers, Angola´s human capital index of 0.36 is one of the lowest in the African continent. To fully grasp the size of the country’s challenge, it means that an Angola child born in 2018 will only achieve 36% of his/her human potential by the age of 18.

So, we ask ourselves (and we are sure you do too): what are the main obstacles preventing the agricultural sector from reaching its full potential and addressing the Angola's food insecurity? We found that there are three main stumbling blocks: (i) access to land is predominantly informal because formalization of rural land rights is overly restrictive; (ii) basic infrastructure, such as road connectivity, irrigation, and access to electricity is visibly lacking; and (iii) lack of human capital. The agricultural workforce in Angola is poorly qualified, with most farmers having low levels of schooling and limited skills on more efficient and productive agricultural practices and technologies.

Having said all this, it is not all doom and gloom. We think Angola can still transform itself from an oil producing, food-insecure country into the next regional food hub in Africa, and steps are already being taken in the right direction. The Angolan government is committed to diversifying the economy away from oil. To this end, we are glad to see that it has identified agriculture as one of the key sectors in its National Development Plan (NDP) for 2023-2027. The NDP outlines a comprehensive Program for the Promotion of Agricultural and Livestock Production, which includes six objectives: increasing access to inputs, promoting small producers’ collaboration, increasing productivity, strengthening food resilience, advancing research and development, and enhancing agricultural self-sufficiency.

Joining this effort, the World Bank has been supporting the Government through a wide array of investments. In the World Bank’s forthcoming Angola Country Economic Memorandum, our teams identified the main constraints and potential drivers of growth, providing a series of policy recommendations to help Angola unlock its agriculture potential. Key recommendations include:

• increasing access to basic infrastructure in rural areas through public-private partnerships, especially in those areas with agriculture potential, e.g. the Lobito Corridor;
• strengthening human capital, especially amongst farmers, through the scale-up of the Government’s Escolas de Campo (Farmer Field Schools) model program;
• expanding access of agricultural financial services by creating and stimulating a dynamic of trust between commercial banks and actors in a sector considered high risk – such as what has been achieved in the last years through the Commercial Agriculture Development Project (PDAC); and,
• increased funding to the agricultural Research, Development & Innovation (RD&I) system. In Angola, RD&I is reflected across the Bank-financed Agriculture portfolio, such as the Smallholder Agricultural Transformation Project, the Agricultural Productivity Program for Southern Africa, and the Commercial Agriculture Development Project.

As we look to the future, we are optimistic that the development of the agriculture sector in Angola will position the country as a future agriculture powerhouse of Africa and will also ensure that every Angolan will have access to enough, safe, and healthy food to meet their dietary needs and to reach their full potential.