In the past decade, Angola has experienced some of the worst moments of its recent history, with two periods of war that affected the civil population more directly than ever before. The performance of the social sectors was seriously debilitated, in large measure due to the low level of public funding allocated to these services in the last few years.

This situation had serious consequences for the state of health, education and general well-being of the population, resulting in Angola’s social indicators being amongst the worst in Southern Africa. Conscious of the need to improve the delivery of social services, the Government of Angola, together with four United Nations agencies, took the important initiative of sponsoring a detailed study on the public financing of these services, with the objective of making practical recommendations regarding the distribution of resources and budget management mechanisms.

Carried out between January and July 2002, the study was especially significant in demonstrating the excellent results that can be achieved when the Government of Angola and the United Nations work in partnership for development. These benefits are all the more important at a time when the country  has the historical opportunity, due to the restoration of peace, to take advantage of the much more favorable conditions than in the past to overcome the problems of the social sectors.

The present study contributes to the diagnosis of the sectors, by providing information on the resources that are currently made available to them, on the distribution of those resources within each sector and on the mechanisms of budget management.