CEA/ISCTE-IUL Seminar on Oil Companies and the Health Sector in Angola, 13 November 2009.

From Monitorization of Conflicts in Africa

	Main URL: http://cea.iscte.pt/ Country(ies): Angola International Organization(s): Topic(s): humanitarian intervention, health sector, non-state actors Date: 2009/11/06 Created by: DIAS

African Studies' Workshop, CEA/ISCTE-IUL.

Title: The involvement of the oil companies in the public health sector in Angola: a new model for humanitarian intervention?

Speaker: Virginie Tallio (CEA/ISCTE-IUL) Date: Friday, 13 November 2009. Time: 15:30-17:00 Venue: B2 01 (Library Building), ISCTE-IUL, Lisbon.

Angola is one of the most contradictory countries in the world. It has among the worst health and educational indicators in the world, due to the war which tore it apart for more than thirty years. It is nevertheless considered as having the fastest economic growth, thanks to the oil money which flows the country, and became thus a new Eldorado for all sorts of investors. Indeed, the country needs deeply to (re?)build infrastructure (roads, schools, hospitals) as to develop the educational and the health system, and private enterprises participate in this process.

The paper will describe how some prerogatives of the State, such as the reconstruction of the public health sector, are handed over to some private companies. Oil companies are the ones particularly involved in it, by the means of the “angolanisation” process. Through their Corporate Social Responsibility Departments, they are financing health projects and thus competing with N.G.O.s which were the ones handling some of these projects. We will analyze the specificities of the participation of the oil companies in the public health sector and the changes it involves regarding the model of humanitarian intervention.

For further details: http://cea.iscte.pt/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=201&Itemid=55