Ending his mission that started in March 2016 by the end of June 2020, the UNDP Resident Representative, Henrik Fredborg Larsen, met with the Office of the President and her Excellency State Minister Carolina Cerqueira on Monday 29 June 2020.

The representative thanked the Minister for the positive and sincere collaboration between the parties and above all for the openness and contributions of the President's Office team. In doing so he shared three principal points:

The representative thanked specifically the State Minister for the collaboration with UNDP in reviewing the 36 social programmes through which the Government of Angola invests more than USD 4 billion dollars in poverty reduction. He also acknowledged the strong leadership of the President and his office in addressing the situation for more than one million people affected by climate change and the impact of El Niño, and the collaboration with UNDP in developing the Resilience Framework. He emphasized the commitment of the Government to end poverty by 2030, noting that fully feasible for a Middle-Income Country like Angola, and that the accelerated social protection scheme just started and a strong post-COVID job agenda, including for the informal sector, will be key in this effort.

Mr. Larsen also shared his sincere hope that Angola will advance as planned with local elections at the municipal level, seeing democracy at the subnational level as a critical part of empowering Angolan women and men, ensuring that they can participate in decision making and receive quality local services for both social and economic development.

Representing the largest provider of climate services in the world, including in Angola, he also shared his hope that Angola will ratify the Climate Convention as planned in the current work session of the National Assembly, and that Angola will extend its strong regional and global leadership to help negotiate agreements that will take the world to a sustainable future. He noted the country’s advances in renewable energy and encouraged using as base for a strong national zero-carbon strategy to implement the Paris agreement.

The State Minister and Representative also discussed the efforts to address HIV, the importance of the Provedor de Justiça, and UNDP’s new agreement with the Government of Angola for its Accelerator Lab to support innovation and technology start-ups within science and higher education.