The announcements were made on the occasion of Joe Biden's visit to Angola, the first by a North American President to this country and the first to a sub-Saharan African country since 2015.
Joe Biden, who is completing a 72-hour program divided between the capital and the country's second city, Benguela, will speak this Tuesday at the National Slavery Museum, where he should evoke this tragic legacy of the historical past of two countries linked by the transatlantic trade in enslaved people.
In 1619, a ship carrying enslaved Africans captured in Angola and forced to march along a route known as the Kwanza Corridor landed in Hampton, Virginia, and it is estimated that there are currently around 12 million Americans of Angolan descent.
"The United States supports Angola's candidacy for the Kwanza Corridor to the UNESCO World Heritage list, as a way of looking to the future, reestablishing cultural ties and celebrating the wealth and beauty of Angola", says a statement from the Government American document sent to Lusa, in which it announces a grant of 229,000 dollars to support the restoration and conservation of the Álvaro de Carvalho Matoso Residence, from 1786, a building that houses the National Slavery Museum.
Founded in 1977, the museum "offers programming that promotes a message of harmony, humanism and respect for human rights" and the funds will be used to restore the building's external and internal galleries, according to the US government.
Biden and his counterpart João Lourenço met this Tuesday morning at the Presidential Palace where they addressed issues relating to trade, investment and infrastructure, regional security and stability and deepening cooperation between the two countries.
On Wednesday, the North American head of state travels to Lobito to participate in a summit on multilateral investments to accelerate the development of the Lobito Corridor, together with the Presidents of Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania and Zambia.
Angola is the United States' fourth largest trading partner in sub-Saharan Africa, with trade totaling 1.77 billion dollars in 2023.
The two countries established, in November this year, a memorandum of understanding regarding the US-Angola Trade and Investment Partnership and the US Department of Commerce is promoting a trade mission to the ports and railways of Sub-Saharan Africa, in 2025, in Angola and South Africa, to present to North American companies the potential of these sectors in African markets.
The USA also promoted a mission linked to agribusiness in February this year, during which 140 meetings were held between businesspeople, with North American participants predicting an increase of 13.3 million in sales over the next 12 months.
The US and Angola have also signed agreements to facilitate air links and bilateral trade, through the Prosperous Africa initiative, under which 6.9 billion dollars in business has been done since 2021.
Since 2022, the Exim Bank, a US export support entity, has financed projects in Angola worth 2.9 billion dollars in renewable energy, infrastructure and telecommunications projects.
According to information from the US government to Lusa, this month, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) will channel an additional 650 thousand dollars in technical assistance to support the Ministry of Finance in managing financial and debt risks.
Over the past four years, the Treasury Department "has supported Angola's efforts to reduce debt vulnerabilities through technical assistance", which has allowed the government to restructure its domestic debt and lower interest rates, according to the note sent to Lusa.
The document also refers to cooperation in the field of defence, with a new meeting of the Anglo-American Joint Committee on Defence Cooperation (DEFCOM) scheduled to be held in Luanda in 2025, following the first meeting in June 2024 at the Pentagon.
Since 2020, the United States has spent more than 17 million dollars on training Angolan military personnel, having increased annual assistance from 500,000 dollars to 600,000 dollars last year, and will provide the Angolan marines with eight vessels, the last of which will be delivered in 2025.
The US has also funded humanitarian aid programmes, the development of cybersecurity strategies, the fight against money laundering and terrorism crimes, assistance to refugees and asylum seekers, oceanographic research, the fight against HIV/AIDS and malaria, etc.
According to the US government, USAID has provided almost 415 million dollars to treat and prevent the disease and trained more than 12,000 workers, which has led to a 29 percent decrease in malaria deaths in 2023 in the provinces covered by the PMI initiative compared to 2020 levels.
The State Department is also ready to continue funding the promotion of human rights, subject to the availability of funds, and to provide scholarships to Angolan students, as well as other support in the area of education.
The visit, initially scheduled for October, takes place about a year after Biden received João Lourenço in Washington.
