Ylian Rordriguez Ochoa
Kendall College
Science and Culture Angola

Angola is a developing country located at the southwestern part of Africa with total population of 18,565,269 (Central Intelligence Agency, 2013). Angola is the seventh largest country in Africa; it has 18 provinces and Luanda as their capital city where 23% of total population is located with the highest population density. In Angola, 56% of total population is located in urban area and 40% of them are located in the capital city, while 44% of total population is located in rural area (World Health Organization, 2013). Angola is a country with plenty of natural resources but due to poor farming practices, and lack of technology to develop those sources has drag down its economy. Simply, civil war and colonization for past 117 years of time stopped this country from developing fully.

According to WHO’s statistic, Angola has average of 54.59 years of life expectancy and death rate of 12.06 death / 1,000 population, and 223,897 death / year in total population. Major causes of death in Angola are HIV/AID, tuberculosis, influenza, malaria, diarrheal diseases, low birth weight, and malnutrition, which are preventable and curable causes. Most of the people who are victims of those diseases are the people living in the rural area with no decent medical facilities, proper food supply or any sanitation. (World Health Organization, 2011). It is due to poor level of people who are qualified to aid their community such as doctors, nurses physicians etc. this in density is (0.08 doctors per every / 1,000 of the population).

The basic healthcare clinics provided by Angolan Ministry of Health (MINSA) are freely accessible but, due to limited facility, and lack of medical supplies people have to visit private hospital in rural areas and they have to pay for $80 for vaccination and $150 per month for hospitalization. Despite the excessive amount of payment, most of these hospitals in the rural area don’t have enough equipment to give proper diagnosis and these medical expenses are heavily burden to most of people. After a civil war, Angola government discovered fossil fuel and their GDP had dramatically grown. But, due to sudden economic growth and the enormous gap between rich and poor has lead into a huge increase in private health expenditure per capita. After the discovery the Government has only been focusing on the fossil fuel exportation which constantly attracting the expatriates who cause inflation due to brining in foreign currency to Angola.
These acts shows us a noticeable difference between poverty and wealthy and how the government is only concentrating and investing on the wealthy community. Nowadays, expatriates working in Angola’s oil business are the 2% of extremely rich people who’s spending more than five times of average wage that local earns to the single meal. According to CIA’s research only 15% of labor forces in Angola are working at the industry and services, while 85% of labor force work in agricultural segments.

Some of the risk factors are poor road conditions and deforestation of their rain forest caused soil erosion and during the rainy season, dry land breaks and flows in to the water sources and makes water muddy. So, during rainy season most of people in rural area don’t have access to clean water. According to government’s figures (2010 IBEP-Population and Well being survey) only 42% of Angola’s total population have access to clean water and lesser then 60% are under appropriate sanitation. Lack of clean water in rural area people and their livestock are under high risk of cholera and typhoid.