|
People
Demography
Angola's current population is estimated at over 17 million people, the majority of which live in the western half of country. Luanda is the capital and the largest city in Angola. Other major towns are Huambo, Benguela and Lobito. At independence, a large proportion of Angola's European population fled the country. More than 300,000 Portuguese nationals returned to Portugal in the space of a few months in 1975. The civil war that persisted since 1975 until 2002 led to large-scale relocations of the population. Because of the war, many were forced to flee from the countryside. As a result a high percentage of the population lives in cities, higher than in most of Africa. Angola's population has suffered a large degree of dislocation as a result of the war.
Ethnicity
Most Angolans belong to one of three ethnic groups - the Õvimbundu, Mbundu and Bakongo - which together make up nearly three-fourths of population. Other ethnic groups represented are the Lunda Chokwe, Nganguela, Nyaneka-Humbe, Ovambo and Europeans. People of mixed European and africa ancestry - Mestico - also contribute to Angola's ethnocultural composition.
Language
Portuguese is the official language, but many Angolans also speak one or more Bantu languages. Like so many facts about Angola, it is difficult to know the religious affiliations of people because of the chaos created by almost 40 years of war. The literacy rate is 67.4 percent, however, this is an average rate that obfuscates gender differences.
The literacy rate for men is 82.9 percent and the rate for women is 54.2 percent. Note that 2.6 percent of GDP is spent on educational expenditures in this country.
Religion
The majority of Angolans call themselves Christians (Roman Catholics and various Protestant denominations), while the remainder practice traditional African religions or no religion at all.
Health and Welfare
Angola's birth and death rates are among the highest in Africa. More than 43 percent of the population is less than 15 years of age. According to recent estimates, the average Angolan life expectancy is 38.48 years of age; for males the rate is 37.48 years while for females it is 39.5 years. The infant mortality rate is 178.13 deaths per 1,000 live births. The female fertility rate is 6.05 children born per woman. The population growth rate is 2.06 percent.
As with many other southern African countries, one of the major contributory reasons for the low life expectancy rate and the high mortality rate, besides the war, is the spread of the HIV/AIDS virus. Recent estimates suggest that the prevalence of HIV/AIDS is about 2.1 percent and that 190,000 people are living with the disease. Non-governmental sources note that the figure is considerably higher as a result of the war, and because the health infrastructure has all but collapsed. Also, they note that most people who are sick normally rely on relatives to take care of them, as opposed to going to health facilities with non-existent supplies. As a result, most cases go unreported.
The risk of infectious diseases in this country is very high. Food or waterborne diseases include bacterial and protozoal diarrhea, hepatitis A, typhoid fever; vectorborne diseases include malaria, African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness); water contact disease include schistosomiasis.
Note that 4.6 percent of GDP is spent on health expenditures in this country.
Human Development
One notable indicator used to measure a country's quality of life is the Human Development Index (HDI), which is compiled annually since 1990 by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The HDI is a composite of several indicators, which measure a country's achievements in three main areas of human development: longevity, knowledge and education, as well as economic standard of living. In a ranking of 169 countries recently, the HDI placed Angola in the low human development category, at 146th place, up from a ranking of 162.
Note: Although the concept of human development is complicated and cannot be properly captured by values and indices, the HDI, which is calculated and updated annually, offers a wide-ranging assessment of human development in certain countries, not based solely upon traditional economic and financial indicators.
Written by Dr. Denise Youngblood Coleman, Editor in Chief, www.countrywatch.com; see Bibliography for list of research sources.
|