It’s a problem faced by Angola — and one that Sérgio Filipe, CEO of Siemens Angola, is determined to solve.
The sub-Saharan country was gripped by civil war for almost 30 years, and although substantial investment has been made to repair its tattered infrastructure since the conflict ended in 2002, the journey is by no means over.
The road to recovery
“The country is still rebuilding, it’s still trying to find its way forward,” says Sérgio.
Approximately 65% of the country’s medical facilities were destroyed during the fighting and 1,500 school buildings were demolished in just three years, between 1996 and 1999. Angola’s roads, bridges, ports, and railways were also damaged, impacting its ability to develop regional trade links with neighboring countries. In addition, millions of active landmines litter the country, slowing down rebuilding efforts.
But transformation is underway. Roads and bridges received $12.7 billion dollars in investment during the 10 years following the war, a new airport is under construction, and plans to build two new hospitals were unveiled earlier this year.
Such significant work requires significant skills. But there’s a problem: the civil war meant a whole generation of Angolans were unable to access schools and universities.
“You need educated people,” Sérgio says. “But during the war, the amount of people receiving degrees was very, very limited. This has improved since 2002, but investment has to continue.”
Solving the skills shortage
What’s the solution? Angola has a secret weapon — its young people.
With an average age of 16.5 years old, the country has one of the youngest populations in the world. “It means that you have enough human resources for the future. The potential is here,” says Sérgio. And, in a bid to unlock this potential, Siemens has launched a program to teach the next generation of Angolans the skills needed to lead the country confidently into the future.
Firstly, the company is providing resources to primary school pupils aimed at encouraging them to pursue careers in engineering. They recently donated 2,000 books and 300 energy experience kits to teach children about chemical energy, magnetic energy, and electricity. “Our idea is to plant the seeds for future engineers. We want to get children excited about science so in the future we may potentially have engineers,” he says.
To help train older students (aged 17–23), Siemens has donated a micro automation lab to a university in Luanda — ISPTEC (Higher Polytechnic Institute of Technologies and Sciences). The lab, which welcomes its first students later this year, will teach students to use Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs), an industrial computer that can control manufacturing processes such as robotic devices or assembly lines.
“As a result, we will have people better prepared to join either ourselves or the industry in general,” says Sérgio.
The importance of Angolanization
Siemens currently supplies turbines and compressors to Angola’s oil and gas industry, which relies on a number of experienced project managers and field service engineers. The company is also extending a substation in Angola’s capital city, Luanda, to provide energy to residents. It’s a task that requires qualified engineers.
Faced with a skills shortage, many specialist jobs are outsourced rather than filled by locals. “Right now the country does not have the quantity or quality of skilled workers required, which means expats are needed in Angola,” he says. Sérgio himself is Portuguese and moved to Angola in 2014 to take on the role.
But, if the next generation of Angolans can be equipped with the right skills, they will be able to develop their country without calling on external help. “You only have a sustainable enterprise if you can rely on local resources,” he says. “If we deploy the concepts properly, we will have fewer expats and more and more Angolans actually in place. These people could tomorrow replace expats in oil platforms, or expats that are developing software for any other given industry actually here in town.”
Sérgio emphasizes the importance of ‘Angolanization’, a term coined to describe the drive to increase the presence of local workers over international workers, but is adamant that expats will continue to play a role in the development of Angola.
“It doesn’t mean that, in the long run, you will have no expats. That’s still good as it develops a multicultural environment, but we would like to see a significantly lower number than we have today. In the long run, we need locals to run our companies,” he says.
Looking towards the future
Training a new generation of workers will take time, effort, and investment, but it will ultimately help to unlock the country’s potential. “Yes, these things take time,” says Sérgio. “Yes, these things need money. Yes, these things need persistence. But Siemens wants to play a part in this, so we can shape the future. The solutions we are putting in place will make a difference to people’s lives.”
Sérgio Filipe has been Chief Executive Officer at Siemens, S.A. Angola for almost three years. Before this role, he was a Cluster Compliance Officer and Data Protection Manager. He joined Siemens in 1991.
Portrait illustration: Danilo Agutoli
Collage Illustration: Isha Suhag
