During the first decade after the end of the civil war in 2002, the Angolan
government managed to transform its war-torn economy into the fifth biggest in
Africa. Growth was mainly fuelled by a doubling of oil production, turning Angola
into Sub-Saharan Africa’s second largest oil producer after Nigeria. Oil revenues
and oil-backed loans allowed for large-scale state investments in the construction
and rehabilitation of public infrastructures, as well as the implementation of an
ambitious housing programme to meet the country’s massive housing deficit in a
context of rapid urbanisation.
