Since the end of Angola’s 27-year-long civil war on April 4, 2002, the country’s economy has prospered thanks to oil.

Africa watchers feared parliamentary elections last year in August could reignite political violence and instability. Instead, the poll went off with little more than a hiccup.

Election observers from Southern African Development Community, the African Union, and the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries issued statements labeling the elections free and fair. While Angola is routinely ranked one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, what is less recognized is the southern African country’s political stability and social cohesion.

Celebrating on Thursday the 11th anniversary of its Peace and National Reconciliation Day, Angola is looking to diversify its economy away from exporting fossil fuels by investing in new sectors like agriculture and information technology.

“Angola showed it is a peaceful and sustainable democracy with the presidential election in August,” Albino Malungo said in an interview with The Korea Herald on Wednesday.

“My country is well on its way as a democratic nation,” he said. “Democracy means that if someone is recognized as popular, he will be accepted as his nation’s leader,” adding that international observers certified that the elections were free and fair.

Angola’s economic growth is remarkable by any measurement. Decades of civil war destroyed some 70 percent of the nation’s road network, as well as two-thirds of its 4,000 bridges.

In just six years since the country’s 2002 attainment of peace, gross domestic product rose 260 percent with an average annual growth rate of 14 percent.

Even taking into account inflation, the Living Conditions Index of the Angolan population registered an annual average increase of 20 percent. Angola had the highest annual GDP in the world from 2001-2010 at 11 percent. Average life expectancy rose from 45 in 2002 to 51 in 2011, and the average Angolan now has nine years of schooling compared to five in 2000.

But it is due in part to oil-backed credit lines from China ― Angola is China’s No. 1 oil supplier. That has fueled a building boom of houses, hospitals, schools, roads and bridges. The energy sector continues to play an inordinate role in the Angolan economy.

While half of the country’s workforce is employed in agriculture, that sector represents about 12 percent of Angola’s overall GDP, according to recent stats by the World Bank. The petroleum sector, by contrast, contributes nearly 50 percent of GDP, but employs just 1 percent of the country’s workers.

That’s where Korea comes in.

Korea pledged to double development assistance to Africa including vital technology transfers and knowledge sharing programs during last year’s Korea Africa Cooperation Forum in Seoul.

Also last year, the two countries inked an agreement to drop entry visa requirements for diplomats and government officials.

Angola aims to glean insights from Korea’s own development experience, as well as tech transfers and know-how.

For example, the Export-Import Bank of Korea financed a $150 million project to modernize cotton cultivation on a 5,000-hectare farm in Kwanza Sul Province by introducing advanced production techniques.

With some capital investment, Angolan coffee could become a lucrative export crop that Korean importers would be interested in, said a Korean diplomat who recently completed a posting there.

President Park Geun-hye said in March that cooperation with Angola is one of the priorities of her Africa agenda, highlighting the stellar performance of the Angolan economy.

Korean-Angolan relations took a qualitative step forward in 2007 and 2008 when the two countries opened ambassador-level chanceries in their respective capitals. Korea set up its embassy in Luanda in December 2007 and Angola opened its diplomatic mission here in November 2008.

Korea recently asked for Angolan support in the candidacy of former trade minister Bark Tae-ho for the post of director general of the World Trade Organization.

WTO members will select a new director general by May 31 to replace outgoing Pascal Lamy.

Malungo said winning peace was crucial to a decade of uninterrupted Angolan economic growth, but that was only possible after enduring the crucible of its decades-long civil war.

Angola won its independence from Portuguese colonial rule in 1975, but immediately upon its long-fought-for freedom, the southern African nation sank into decades-long political division and guerilla war, which pitted a Soviet Union-backed government against U.S.-backed UNITA rebels.

After a road map for peace talks devoid of foreign influence was hammered out, peace was finally attained through some eight further years of hard negotiations.

Angola’s Peace and National Reconciliation Day was proclaimed on April 4, 2002, when the Angolan government signed a memorandum of understanding with former rebel movement UNITA bringing to an end 27 years of civil war.

Peace and reconciliation in Angola took a page from U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in how he concluded the U.S. Civil War, in which Lincoln stressed a peace with “no victors, no vanquished, with malice toward none and charity to all.”

Mulango said two things made peace without victors or vanquished possible. One was the effective integration of Angolans who fought with UNITA back into the mainstream of society. The second was more than two decades of uninterrupted economic growth.

Investments and development cooperation from not only China but also, to a lesser extent, Korea played an important role. Development and reconciliation programs integrated the some 4 million people displaced by the fighting, as well as over 100,000 rebel forces, back into Angolan society.

By Philip Iglauer (ephilip2011@heraldcorp.com)