Private Sector Housing in Angola

The Angolan Government, in its public pronouncements, has put great store in the private sector in driving post-war development and taking the lead particularly in the housing sector. However the World Bank has shown that Angola remains one of the world’s most difficult countries to do business, particularly in the sale and transfer of property.

In the 1990s Angola had the daunting task of transforming, what had been a centrally-planned post-independence economy into a more open liberalised one that would attract foreign investment. At the end of the war in 2002 the country hoped to attract international investors and know-how to rebuild its devastated infrastructure and help meet the huge social demands for housing and employment. The Angolan Government rightly identified some of the key steps that needed to be taken to attract the private sector assistance. It committed itself to the provision of fiscal incentives, a reform of the system of credit for housing and the creation of public-private partnerships. However the growth of the private sector in Angola was inhibited by several historic factors.

This paper explores the development of the private sector real estate market in Angola and looks at the history and transformation through policy post war, houses delivered by the private sector under the National Housing Development Programme and explores the Project Nova Vida case study of a public-private partnership.