Published in Land & Post-Conflict Peacebuilding, Vol. 2-014. Environmental Law Institute & UN Environment Program – Earthscan, New York 2013. Since the end of the armed conflict in 2002, Angola’s recovery and remarkable economic growth have been fuelled by the extractive industries of petroleum and diamonds. The consolidation of peace, however—the reintegration of politically divided populations and excombatants—is much more linked to access to land. Land is not the only resource important to peacebuilding in post-conflict Angola, but it is a primary factor in social reconstruction.
The postwar period in Angola provides an opportunity to resolve long-standing problems that, if left untended, may result in renewed conflict in the future. Angola’s legacy of conflict, which was partly fuelled by injustice related to land appropriation by the governing elites (both exogenous and indigenous), must still be addressed. Successive revisions of land legislation have not fundamentally addressed the underlying problems that originally led to conflict.