Since the end of the civil war in 2002, the government of Angola has used Chinese credit facilities backed by petroleum-based guarantees to build prestige urban projects . The most famous is the public-privately developed Kilamba “Centralidade” with 20,000 apartments, China’s largest housing venture in Africa. With the collapse of oil prices through 2014 and 2017, the Angolan state budget has been drastically reduced, and the government will unlikely be able to provide investment and subsidies to continue building new housing like Kilamba. The private sector has been reluctant to provide their own financing and invest in real-estate themselves due to weak land tenure and the lack of legislative reforms to make a functional land market. Solving the problems around land may be a way to stimulate financing for the housing sector. Post-socialist countries like Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia and China have unique opportunities through the conversion of State-monopoly-owned land for urban poverty reduction and social housing through land-value capture.
DW Angola
Development Workshop Angola