Lisbon, Sept. 12, 2025 (Lusa) - The president of the Episcopal Conference of Angola and Sao Tome and Principe (CEAST) said on Friday that the decline in development aid is an “opportunity” for Africa to invest in its resources and build structures for the rule of law.

“The decline in development aid is a reflection of a more selfish and nationalistic global society,” said José Manuel Imbamba, but he believes that for Africa, this is “an opportunity.”

"Sometimes we get distracted from the work we should be doing at home, and we want to live off aid, we want to live in eternal dependence and without knowing how to bring about the development that is our responsibility," he said at the final press conference of the 16th Meeting of Bishops of Portuguese-speaking Countries, held in Lisbon.

The Archbishop of Saurimo admitted that institutions in many African countries “are still weak” and “highly politicised, which is why there is this tension between the institutionalisation of this republican culture, this culture of respect for institutions” and local dynamics.

It is a “process, it is work that is being done so that citizens themselves understand the importance of this and, on the other hand, so that the ministers themselves, the politicians themselves, also know how to value these institutions, which must be at the service of citizenship, pure and simple.”

“We, as the Church, what we do most is to challenge, to call to conscience, so that this may be so, so that the democratic state and the rule of law may truly assert themselves as such,” he said.

In the case of Angola, “dialogue is fluid between the Church and the State” and the role of the Catholic hierarchy is to bring “the voice of the weakest to the governing bodies, so that justice is established, the common good is established, respect for human dignity is established.”

The ultimate goal is “to have institutions functioning without major upheavals,” he added.

PJA/AYLS // AYLS

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