Luanda, July 2, 2025 (Lusa) - The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) said on Wednesday that it has US$60 million available to finance projects in Angola, but warned of constraints caused by bureaucracy.
According to the UNDP's deputy resident representative in Angola, Gabriel Dava, the United Nations agency has a financial ceiling of US$60 million (€50.8 million) for 2025, of which around 50% has been implemented, with the health sector absorbing most of the funding.
"We have the health sector, which is the sector that absorbs most of our funding, through the Global Fund, where we finance interventions in the fight against HIV, malaria and tuberculosis, as well as in the area of vaccination and the purchase of essential medicines," he said.
Speaking on the sidelines of a conference on ‘Multilateral Institutions and Development Financing’ held in Luanda, Gabriel Dava also listed UNDP support in the sectors of environment and biodiversity, sustainable energy, agriculture and irrigation.
Dava, who was one of the speakers on a panel on the vision of financiers at this conference organised by the magazine Economia & Mercado and the consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), also spoke about constraints caused by bureaucratic issues in the implementation of some projects.
He said that bureaucracy in administrative processes is necessary, but noted that there are situations in which communication between two ministries for the approval of projects "can take between three and four months".
In any case, "the UNDP, as a development agency, has a role to play in working with the government to help overcome these constraints," he told Lusa.
He also endorsed the need for Angolan authorities to regularly monitor projects financed by multilateral organisations, noting that monitoring cannot be done solely by the financier.
The UNDP "monitors projects, as does the World Bank, but we believe that, above all, it is the Angolan state that must monitor them, because these projects [financed by multilateral organisations] are intended to benefit the Angolan people," he noted.
According to the UNDP deputy resident representative in Angola, it is important for the authorities to strengthen their monitoring capacity to verify that project funding is meeting the objectives set.
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