General Discussion

President Biden's Angola visit is yet another Big F'n Deal that has gone unheralded and too little appreciated.
Joe knows way more about Angola and the future than any of us realize. As goes Angola, Namibia, the DRC and Zambia, so goes the southern half of Africa.


https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/12/02/fact-sheet-president-bidens-trip-to-angola/


In September 2023, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin became the first U.S. Secretary of Defense to visit Angola. In June 2024, the U.S. Department of Defense hosted the inaugural Joint Angolan-American Defense Cooperation Committee (DEFCOM) at the Pentagon. During DEFCOM, representatives signed an agreement to allow the exchange of logistics goods and services between our respective militaries, which facilitates cooperation as we continue to build our growing defense partnership. Angola and the U.S. Department of Defense, with the Department of State as appropriate, are continuing to plan for cooperative work in the areas of engineering, medicine, cyber, peacekeeping, maritime security, and the development of a coast guard. The next DEFCOM meeting is planned to be held in Angola in 2025.

In September 2024, Angola agreed to join Department of Defense’s State Partnership Program (SPP) executed by the National Guard Bureau. Through the SPP, Guard units work with partner militaries to bolster capabilities, improve interoperability, and enhance principles of responsible governance. The SPP fosters long-term relationships across all levels of society and encourages the development of economic, political, and military ties between U.S. states and partner nations. The National Guard Bureau is currently in the process of pairing Angola with a State National Guard that is well-aligned with Angola’s requirements.

Since 2020, the United States has dedicated nearly $17 million toward training and professionalization for the Angolan military, including English language training, expanding women’s access to military education courses in the United States, and maritime security-focused training. In just the past year, the U.S. increased annual International Military Education and Training assistance to Angola from $500,000 to $600,000. The United States is also providing the Angolan Marines with eight rigid-hull inflatable boats and other critical equipment, with the final four boats scheduled to be delivered to Angola by the end of 2025.

The United States has been proud to partner with Angola to address regional and global issues, and it remains a steadfast partner in navigating challenging and complex situations. The United States is providing more than $1 billion in additional humanitarian funding which will assist countries across Sub-Saharan Africa, including Angola, to respond to humanitarian crises including displacement and El Nino-induced drought.

The United States is supporting Angola’s development of a cyber security strategy through almost $1.4 million in projects providing training and mentorship to the future cybersecurity workforce and assisting the Angolan Ministry of Defense’s creation of a cyber defense capability.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has initiated discussions with the Angolan Ministries of Interior, Finance, and Trade on a three-year, $5 million program to bolster the two countries’ management, oversight, and accountability of their trade and travel sectors. The program would focus on modernizing information sharing, allowing the governments to interdict threats and hazards at the earliest possible point, and mitigate and monitor threats from transnational criminal organizations and other malign non-state actors.

Between 2019 and 2023, the Treasury Department provided technical assistance to help strengthen Angolan institutions’ ability to identify, detect, and prosecute money laundering, terrorist financing, and other crimes in support of Angola’s political and economic reforms. USAID and the State Department are working with various Angolan institutions—including Parliament, the National Court of Accounts, and the Ministries of Health, Education and Finance—to build their public financial management, debt management, and anti-corruption capacity. Capacity is also being built to support Angola’s implementation of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative standard.

The United States and Angola are working together to combat timber trafficking through the creation of a National Forest Inventory, a critical tool for any country that seeks to conserve and manage its forest resources sustainably. The State Department, through the Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL), announced $750,000 in new programs in Angola to improve the identification, interdiction, and confiscation of illicit commodities. USAID will add $1.3 million from fiscal year 2023 Southern Africa regional Sustainable Landscapes resources to an existing partnership of $1.3 million to expand the partnership between the U.S. Forest Service and the Government of Angola’s Ministry of Agriculture and Forests to continue work on the forest inventory, establish a partnership for carbon market utilization, and develop a Forest Monitoring System.
The State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration provides funding to support refugee assistance, as well as regional funding to UNHCR to support the nearly 56,000 refugees and asylum seekers in Angola.

Angola is a founding member of the Partnership for Atlantic Cooperation, an initiative committed to the interconnected goals of advancing a peaceful, stable, prosperous, open, safe, and cooperative Atlantic as well as to conserving the Atlantic Ocean as a healthy, sustainable, and resilient resource for generations to come. To develop Angola’s capacity for ocean science research and support for ocean-based food security, the United States is collaborating with the Atlantic community to leverage support for Angola’s ocean research vessel Baia Farta. The United States and Angola have concluded a Letter of Intent to formalize collaboration, including, for example, on bringing U.S. experts to Angola to support ocean science capacity building and training through the Fulbright Specialist program....

May we revere President Joe Biden as long as he lives.