ABSTRACT
Introduction Despite being blessed with valuable resources including vast oil reserves and huge deposits of high-quality diamonds, Angola is one of the poorest countries in the world. A primary reason for this has been a civil war that ravaged the country between 1974 and 1994. In addition to claiming thousands of lives, the war adversely affected production and severely constrained the government’s ability to invest in services such as health, education, and infrastructure. During the war years, virtually all earnings from oil and diamond exports were directed toward military activities. The quality of life in the country has been further undermined by widespread displacement of the population and the prevalence of landmines which have greatly handicapped food production. The result has been an extremely low quality of life: malnutrition, prevalence of disease, high infant and maternal mortality, and extremely unsanitary living conditions.With the cessation of the civil war, an opportunity has opened for the government to adopt policies to alleviate poverty. Central to the design of appropriate policies is a clear understanding of the current state of poverty. Although there are visible indicators of extreme poverty in Angola, reliable data that may be used to evaluate the extent of deprivation and also the effectiveness of poverty alleviation policies were previously not available. To more accurately quantify the extent of poverty in Angola, the World Bank funded a household consumption survey in 1995. Data from this survey, though not perfect, are the best available for the country. The data set is comprehensive and may be used to evaluate poverty status in Angola.The paper seeks to determine the extent of biological and psychological deprivation based on accepted international standards. A primary motivation of this paper is to analyze how well existing measures
of poverty capture the extent of deprivation in very low-income countries like Angola.
