THE ROLE OF ANGOLA IN SOUTHERN-CENTRAL AFRICA: WATER RESOURCES, REGIONAL COOPERATION AND SOCIOENVIRONMENTAL DYNAMICS

• Grant number: 11/17371-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: November 01, 2011
• End date: October 31, 2013
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Sociology
• Principal Investigator: Fernando Augusto Albuquerque Mourao
• Grantee: Maurício Waldman
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The goal of the research is to evaluate in terms of International Relations (IR), the role of Angola in South-Central Africa for the hidric resources. Faced with a situation of global water scarcity, Angola enjoys unique situation. The country has had enough fresh water springs, regional aspect that stated because the plateau of Huambo in the center of the country, harbor springs, rivers and many tributaries. Five prominent river basins, river Cuanza, Ocavango, Zambezi, Zaire, Cunene - crucial to the Angolan territory and the South-Central Africa - drain from Huambo. Angola is potentially a regional and global provider of fluid, including the assertion that trade in virtual water (rooted in products with high water ratio), as well as bottled water and distributed through pipelines and tankers. In the immediate geographical context, in contrast to countries like Angola to Namibia and the Republic of South Africa (RSA), who experience water stress situation. Protocol country's system of Shared Watercourses Development Community (SADC), Angola gained prominence in the regional water management. Another crop of interest is the country's performance with the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), and particularly with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Angola nation with which shares also an economic potential as well vast freshwater springs . This picture, in terms of multilateralism, raises assessment of interactions between the countries of central-southern Africa and Angola to the possibilities raised from the nexus of diplomacy and the role they can play at county level. Moreover, issues such as water supply and sanitation - that is, public policy freshwater - maintained by the connection with the broader theme, are also guided in a body of research focusing on water, necessarily compatible with a picture of links social and environmental.