Oil wealth helping few of Angola’s poor

Here is Africa at its richest, visible from a hilltop balcony: 11 giant construction cranes swiveling in midair, a gawky ballet of steel and concrete, building skyscrapers story by story. On a street below, carpenters shoot wood through a power saw, quickly finishing an apartment building where three penthouses have just been rented for $26,000 a month each.

Here, too, is Africa at its poorest, just a mile away, as night falls outside the emergency room at Luanda Pediatric Hospital: 81 children and their parents waiting to see the lone doctor on duty. Some babies are softly crying, many are feverishly hot, and a few unlucky ones have waited more than 14 hours. Just a day before, 18 children died at this hospital, all from preventable diseases.

And here is a chance to narrow the extremes of Angola: Unprecedented billions of dollars in oil money are filling government coffers. The most pressing questions are whether the country can wisely spend and save this windfall.

The Boston Globe