Angola: Peace at Last                See Angola photo gallery.

Initial Scan to Identify Potential Acacia Partners and Proposed ICT Projects in Angola

Project No. 101512 – September 2002

Following several false starts to an enduring peace process in Angola it appears that the three-decade-long civil war has finally ended – and now rebuilding of a nation is running apace. There are, at last count, just over 300 NGO’s, aid agencies and CBO’s active in Angola working to avert a potential humanitarian disaster – of famine. The country’s resources,  infrastructure and capacity have been devastated – particularly severely in the last two years – and these bodies are engaged in a race against time to provide assistance to huge urbanised communities that have mushroomed around a dozen provincial capitals – with priorities in food distribution, water purification and sanitation, housing and agricultural production.

Communications Requirements

With an estimated eight thousand NGO workers and volunteers engaged in social rebuilding and food distribution activities in more than twenty centres around the country, the logistics of planning, managing and communicating with this enormous work-force requires the latest in communications technology. Inmarsat Mini-M sat-phones, Ham radio, HF backbone networks, VSAT stations, email and the humble long-distance telephone line are being utilised to support these efforts. The preferred mode of communicating with field staff is definitely email – due to its hard-copy format and improved speed over fax – and email is presently being carried over sat-phones, HF and ham radio equipment and slow-speed dial-up lines.  

Angola NGO Network

The success of the first email service to be provided specifically to NGO’s working in Luanda in 1996 (ANGOnet) resulted in a high demand for a commercial service – which was then started two years later as Ebonet. Since 1998 the Internet user market in Angola has grown from one ISP to three, and has reached a subscriber level of almost 7’000 users – in a country with only 90’000 phone lines. Public demand is taking off rapidly and is becoming very popular with young adults in Luanda and in five other provincial capitals where access is available in public Internet cafes. At this stage public access is still limited due to a very poor telephone infrastructure and lack of service access (POP’s) in other centres. 

Liberalisation of Telecoms in Angola

The liberalisation of the telecoms sector began in 2001 with the licensing of a second GSM operator to compete with the national mobile operator. In July 2002 four new competitive fixed-line operators were licensed to compete with the national monopoly operator. This sector will now become one of the most competitive and liberalised in SADC – resulting in a rapid investment in communications services – and benefits to society at large.  This should encourage costs to fall and service take-up to increase rapidly.

SchoolNet in Angola

An assessment was made of the SchoolNet project that was initiated in 2000, and the results are good. The initial three schools are still on-line with the University and with a broadband radio connection to the service provider Ebonet. The services are being used by pupils – although not to the full capacity of the dedicated 256kbps radio links. Ebonet is keen to support further development of this concept and is working with several oil companies who are prepared to offer financial support for system set-up and establishment in other schools. In fact, a fourth school has recently (April 2002) been equipped with twenty PC’s and Internet access thanks to a donation by Schlumberger, an international oil company. It is intended that up to twenty secondary schools will receive similar donations by Schlumberger in the next year.

The Impact of ICT in Angola – A Research Report

This research report gauges the impact of various ICT systems in NGO activities and provides an insight into the use of email services by NGO’s and UN agencies working in Angola. It is obviously a very powerful tool and its service is popular where it can be accessed – but access to simple email service proves to be a costly and a difficult business in this country. The report includes an account of a three-day visit to the devastated city of Huambo in central Angola where some of the most intense fighting occurred during early 2000 and which has suffered severe destruction in recent years.  This city provides a good example of a typical city in Angola and illustrates the impact that a very simple email service can have on NGO communications needs and the cost savings it can effect.  

Every NGO cited the use of email as its preferred mode of communications – and their frustration at not having access to simple email services on a broad basis across the country. This lack of access means that alternatives are used – with a subsequent high cost of usage – in some cases exceeding $1’000 per month for very slow speed email access. The Inmarsat option costs $176 per MB of data transferred – versus a $4 cost of transmitting 1MB of data across a national dial-up telephone line. This is a cost ratio of 40:1.

It is apparent that the ANGOnet service in Luanda and in Huambo is very popular with some of the NGO’s – but that certain constraints are impeding greater use and wider appeal. The service in Luanda has about 250 users and meets most expectations due to the good dial-up facilities there, but only three other dial-up centres exist outside the capital, in Lubango, Benguela and in Huambo. The Huambo centre provides a limited dial-in service – and there a bottleneck appears.

The Huambo service is operating at a limited capacity (with only 34 users) but with unsatisfied demand for more service. This hurdle could very easily be surmounted at a low cost – and with a great improvement in user perceptions, satisfaction and cost benefits.  It became apparent that its failure to deliver adequate service is costing users possibly $6’800 on using Inmarsat mobile communications services in Huambo. The table below provides a quick summary of the salient figures for the current situation on ANGOnet usage in Huambo and it provides a model for estimating potential usage of ANGOnet here or possibly in other centres.

 An Implementation Project

This research project recommends a project that would :

• Firstly, improve the performance of the system in Huambo at a minor cost of $2’000,

• Generate additional traffic and users to effect total cost savings of $17’500 per month,

• Replicate this model of an email-only server to roll-out into six other provincial centres,

• Require an initial investment in each system of $11’000 plus $1’200 monthly costs,

• Generate cost savings in each centre of better than $12’500 per month for 100 users,

• Require a total project investment of US$68’000 capital expenditure for 6 centres,

• Ensure that each centre runs on a break-even basis from month 12 onwards.

From the figures above each centre is justified in terms of its effective cost savings to users of alternative services – and the breakeven period should be 8 months for each centre.

The long-term impact of such a project would be to :

• Provide effective cost savings exceeding $100 per month per user of satcoms,

• Provide walk-in access to email services to community organisations (CBO’s),

• Provide local technical skills in each centre to support email and communications users,

• Generate visibility of email as an effective communications service beyond NGO’s,

• Provide the seed for commercial entry of Internet services at a later date,

• Train selected local staff in computer systems and email services,

• Stimulate peripheral activities that benefit from good regional communications services.

Based on information gathered during this project it appears that priority attention should be given to the six major centres of Kuito, Malanje, Saurimo, Menongue, Luena and Uige. These centres are in the central provinces and are evenly distributed around the country where the NGO’s are very active in humanitarian activities. Telecommunications facilities are very limited in these towns and it appears that this situation will pertain for some time to come before the new telecommunications service providers are able to deliver adequate services here.

The target for NGO usage in each centre is possibly :

• Six-month target of 50 users paying $15 each      $750 p.m.

• Twelve month target of 100 users paying $15 each      $1500 p.m.

These figures indicate that the project could be at a break-even position at 80 users within 12 months after start-up. The benefits accruing to the NGO users and community users would far outweigh their direct costs – and the spin-off in providing a visible presence in each centre should encourage faster take-up of other ICT projects in the future when social infrastructure has been rebuilt and schools have been restored.

Based on previous experience with setting up and running a community-access email service it is obvious that Development Workshop is the ideal partner for this project together with ANGOnet , since these two NGO’s have the capability of repeating the success from two previous centres. DW can draw up the system specifications and operating requirements with assistance from ANGOnet to define a standard model for a typical facility such as in Huambo and the six other centres.  Funding is presently being sought for this implementation project.

Missing Persons Location Service

As an enhancement to the provision of email services in these centres, it is suggested that a Missing Persons Location Service (MPLS) could then be set up by ANGOnet to facilitate the tracing of displaced people. This service would require a database of enquirors and enquirees to be built – and could possibly be based on the existing register of all people registered in the QFA’s and who are receiving food aid. This register may contain details of possibly 400’000 people already – and thereby a good basis from which to start such a service.  The service could be operated from a central database in Luanda – and all enquiries for assistance could be sent by email from the email centres – and replies received similarly. 

The CBO’s and NGO’s in the remote centres are ideally positioned to provide such an enquiry service to the communities – and the service might well justify employing a person whose responsibility would be purely to maintain contact with the enquirors – and to be the point of contact for responses from the central locator database.

The spin-offs from this ICT project would include the introduction of technical support and training services, computer skills and email services to communities and individuals that otherwise would have to wait several years before commercial services would be available in those areas.

What Impact can eMail have on Humanitarian Aid?

This report suggests that further research should be undertaken to investigate the needs for non-voice communications such as email, and the impact that the introduction of an email service could have on individuals within communities. This research should be conducted within the Community Based Organisations (CBO’s) and NGO’s working in remote centres around the country – and should be an on-going project of at least 12 months duration.

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