Angola's recovery after decades of war is being threatened by a lack of funding support from both the government and the international community for assisting returning refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs), the World Food Programme (WFP) has warned. With nearly 4 million refugees and IDPs having either returned to their home areas or settled in new areas, the focus has shifted to the re-establishment of livelihoods, noted Dawn Blalock of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Luanda. "This process is still far from complete," she said, explaining that returnees needed support while trying to re-establish themselves in their homeland.

With oil prices soaring to record highs and new oilfields churning out more "black gold", frustration and resentment among Angolans is reportedly growing as they fail to benefit from their natural resources. The government pencilled in an earnings figure of around US $23 per barrel in its 2004 budget, but with prices now about double that, expectations of a government windfall are rising.

Angola’s health authorities have begun immunizing 5 million children under the age of five against polio, part of a campaign by United Nations agencies to make sure the country is not caught up in the current wave of re-infections across Africa. Backed by officials from the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organisation, as well as several non-governmental organizations (NGOs), 12,000 vaccination teams will fan out across the country, the UN agencies said in a statement.

Angola's main opposition party, UNITA, on Wednesday said it was "still considering" government plans to hold the country's first post-war general elections in 2006. According to an electoral timetable, presented to opposition parties on Tuesday, the national poll will be held in September 2006 following an electoral campaign in August.

The Angolan government should listen to civil society, be more open to humanitarian workers and quickly rebuild its judicial system if it wants to improve its human rights record, the UN special representative for human rights defenders said on Sunday. Approaching the end of a 10-day visit to the country, including a two-day trip to Cabinda, Hina Jilani said it was vital to see more concrete action. "For me it's very important to see things happening on the ground. Unless measures are in reality in existence, human rights work is difficult and human rights defenders remain vulnerable," she told IRIN in an interview.

Insufficient funds, poor infrastructure and widespread landmines continue to blight efforts to resettle tens of thousands of Angolans who fled their homes during the civil conflict. Last week the World Food Programme (WFP) warned that unless new donations were received in September no cereals would be distributed to resettled returnees or those scheduled to be repatriated from neighbouring countries. The UN agency has already slashed cereal rations by 50 percent due to the lack of funds.

GOAL

Goal is seeking a medical co-ordinator for its program in Angola. You will assist in project design, fundraising and donor relations as well as co-ordinating and directing program development activities.

Whilst Angola has seen a 27% rise in cereal production to 713,000 mt, the country is still unable to realise its full agricultural potential according to a United Nations report. A recent joint assessment by the Food and Agriculture Organisation and World Food Programme shows that less than 5% of arable land is cultivated because of landmines and a lack of seeds, fertilisers and draught animals. As a result an estimated 1.12 million Angolans per month need to receive food assistance.

GOAL

The Country Director is responsible for the management and ongoing development/extension of GOAL's work within Angola. Amongst other areas, this work includes providing assistance in the post conflict reconstruction and in the return of IDPs and refugees to their areas of origin.

Relations between the Angolan authorities and the main opposition party, UNITA, appeared to have soured once again over the delay in announcing a date for the country's first post-war elections. On Monday a senior UNITA official told IRIN that the party would continue to boycott the constitutional commission laying the groundwork for a national poll until "the government showed real commitment" to establishing an electoral timetable in preparation for the national poll.

Angolan security forces are again arresting and expelling illegal Congolese and West African diamond traffickers but there have been few signs of a repeat of the violence seen earlier this year, according to aid and humanitarian workers. "It is clear the operations started again on 16 July in Uige, Malanje and Lunda-Norte. At the moment we have not received any allegations of human rights violations," one senior humanitarian officer told IRIN.

Angola's main opposition party, UNITA, on Wednesday called for the immediate arrest of those responsible for attacks against its supporters in recent months. After 27 years of civil conflict between UNITA and the government, a peace treaty was signed in April 2002. The country is now moving towards its first post-war national election, although a definite date for the poll is yet to be announced.

Opposition parties in Angola were preparing to resume talks with the government on holding the country's first post-war general election. The main opposition, UNITA, on Monday said the party was awaiting a response to a letter written to the ruling MPLA last Thursday, calling on the authorities to "speed up" preparation for the poll.

"Tony Hodges's book is the first analytically to link together the various economic and political strands that must be examined in order to provide a plausible account of Angola's post-colonial tragedy." - Patrick Chabal, International Affairs.

Some 6,692 children are out of the education system, in Chongoroi District, 156 kilometres away from the town, due to lack of schools and classrooms in the region. According to a source, the District needs 37 primary schools, adding that only 3,535 pupils out of the over 10,000 enrolled at the present academic year are attending classes.

After bearing the brunt of years of civil conflict, women in Angola require special attention and efforts to achieve equality, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) was told this week. Filomena Delgado, Angola's vice-minister for Family and Promotion of Women, said despite adverse conditions, steps had been taken to improve women's rights in the war-affected country: a state secretariat established in 1991 had been upgraded to a ministry in 1997 and the government had also taken "other initiatives to address the socioeconomic, legal and political aspects of gender parity".

Peace in Angola has paved the way for advances in freedom of expression, association and assembly, but in the interior of the country these freedoms continue to be violated, Human Rights Watch says in a new report. On July 2, the president's advisory council recommended holding general elections in 2006, the first since 1992. The 35-page report, "Unfinished Democracy: Media and Political Freedoms in Angola," notes that the detention and harassment of journalists has become less common since the decades-long civil war ended in 2002, and that Angolan authorities have become more tolerant of opposition political activity. However, these changes have largely been confined to the Angolan capital, Luanda.

Human rights groups have welcomed Angola signing up for the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM). Angola was among three South African countries to join the APRM during the closing ceremony of the African Union Summit, bringing the total number of signatories to the mechanism to 23. The APRM monitors a country's progress towards political and economic reform and its socio-economic development.

The 'grace period' created by the 2002 cease-fire agreement in Angola, has been disappearing in recent months. Two different kinds of land conflicts have been increasing in recent years: occupation by powerful people of high quality land held by rural communities with good access to water; and evictions of the urban poor from the areas where they have settled in Luanda. Those in power, NGOs believe, seem to want to acquire assets urgently and to settle legal matters before the next elections. This is according to an article in the June edition of the Independent Land Newsletter.

Remote health posts providing basic primary health care in Angola's Bie province are saving lives among many of the country's rural poor. Run by the Angolan Ministry of Health with the support of the international medical NGO, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), the posts are having a particularly positive impact on the health and wellbeing of children in Angola's central highlands province.