The ongoing revival of Angola’s formerly vast coffee industry is getting a boost from the United Nations Conference for Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the European Union. The Angolan government has prioritized coffee exports as part of its strategy to shift the economy away from oil and toward sustainable sectors.
That strategy has benefitted from a joint program known as “Train for Trade,” with UNCTAD organizing workshops for stakeholders from the coffee and tropical fruits value chains. The stated objective of the EU-UNCTAD Joint Program for Angola is “to improve human and institutional capacities to foster appropriate economic diversification policies in Angola, and to help the country build a more resilient economy capable of eradicating poverty.”
Angola’s coffee production is expected to reach 50,000 metric tons during 2022, a nearly sixfold rise from the 8,700 metric tons harvested in 2019. And it is a massive recovery from the record low of 1,241 tons in 2001.
At the local industry’s peak in 1974, Angola had some 596,000 hectares of land under cultivation of coffee, producing some 228,000 metric tons, the third-highest volume in the world at that time. Coffee was the economy’s mainstay. But following Angola’s independence from Portuguese rule in 1975, the industry was weakened by disruption from civil war, an exodus of farmers and a decline in skilled land management. Today some 53,000 hectares of land are devoted to coffee. Almost all is robusta.
Train for Trade is a capacity building program that invites Angolans from the public, private and academic sectors to draw on best practices, explore new opportunities to diversify activities and craft more sustainable ways to harness Angola’s economic potential. The program takes a holistic approach involving seven components that address the main constraints to social and economic growth in Angola. Train for Trade is part of the official Trade Support Project, also known as ACOM, and it is being financed by the European Union in Angola.
These workshops are just one part of a larger group of activities that have been organized under the umbrella of the UNCTAD’s National Green Export Review (NGER) process in Angola. The workshops target government officials, producers, sector associations and academics from the northwestern provinces of Bengo, Cabinda, Kwanza-Norte, Malanje, Uíge and Zaire, which are among the zones in Angola best suited to farming of coffee and tropical fruit.
At the first NGER workshop in Angola, local stakeholders identified coffee and bananas among the green sectors with significant development potential. This opinion aligns with Angola’s own “Program to Support Production, Export Diversification and Import Substitution,” which includes the coffee and banana value chains among its targets. (The Program is known by its Portuguese-language acronym, PRODESI.) By the end of 2021 a total of 835 projects were approved by commercial banks under PRODESI, a strong record of activity since the 2019 launch. Committed funds total some US$1.75 billion. Not all the projects funded are in the agricultural sector, however.
Beyond coffee and bananas, Angola’s Ministry of Commerce recognizes opportunities for developing green production and exports in other tropical fruits, including mangoes and pineapples. Rising farm output powers exports that earn needed foreign exchange.
Mário Jales, an UNCTAD economic affairs officer who spoke at the opening of one workshop, said that “UNCTAD, in partnership with the Government of Angola and the EU, are dealing with other issues affecting the coffee value chain. These include logistics and transportation which are of paramount importance. ”
Angola’s secretary of state for commerce, Amadeu de Jesus Alves Leitão Nunes, said that the private sector needs to assume a prominent role by constituting the driving force of the country’s economic development. He added that the government continues to work to increase Angola’s international competitiveness.