Fuelling Friendship: Post-Conflict Reconstruction in Angola

After almost three decades of civil war, post-conflict reconstruction is progressing quickly in Angola. The country has become a huge construction site. China in particular has played an important role in stimulating this building boom. Its private and state-owned firms are constructing schools, hospitals, low-cost housing and basic infrastructure, such as roads, bridges and railway networks. Development through infrastructure has worked in China, but will the boom have the desired effect in Angola where human and institutional capacity is so weak? Schools without teachers, or hospitals unable to operate, would not answer the public need.