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History

A Leap Into the Future

The Angola Press Agency (ANGOP), by excellence the only new agency in the country, enters the year 2008 with a technological and human resource that is in constant transformation and updating, in line with the modernisation of the telecommunication and media means.

The company was founded in July 1975, with the name Angola Press National Agency (ANAP), whose works used to be distributed in the format of a bulletin. In October of the same year ANGOP adopted the current and definitive name of Angola Press Agency, a proposal that was made by the then President of Angola, António Agostinho Neto, and on 30 October 1975 the company releases its first dispatch with the new acronym.

Three years later, on 02 February 1978, the agency was transformed into a State media organ, with the issuing of the presidential decree number 11/78 of 01 February on the State Gazette. From that moment, the basis were laid for its growth and development, with magnificent moments experienced during the decade of 1980. At that time ANGOP already had about 300 workers, most of whom journalists, functioning on a 24-hour system, in the country`s eighteen provinces, as well as abroad with five delegations (Portugal, Brazil, United Kingdom, Zimbabwe and Congo).

Prizes

The quality of production caused the main international agencies to utilise ANGOP as a source of information or impelled them to make partnerships with this company.

Among the many news agencies that ANGOP has worked with, throughout the years, are Reuters, AP,AFP, EFE, ANSA , TANJUG , IPS, Prensa Latina, Xinhua, Tass, AIM (Mozambique), ST-Press (São Tomé), ANG (Guinea-Bissau), VNA (Vietnam), BTA (Bulgaria), ADN (former German Democratic Republic), CTK (former Czecokolosvakia), PAP (Poland), MTI (Hungary), Romania Press (Romania), ATCC (North Korea), ANN (Nicaragua), APS (Algeria), AZAP (former Zaire), ABP (Burundi) and ACI (Congo Brazzaville).

A member of the Non-Aligned news agencies pool since its creation, ANGOP assumed the presidency of that organ, with great success, from 1989 to 1992. This pool gathers over a hundred countries from five continents.

As a recognition of its great work throughout the years, ANGOP saw its efforts extolled, for the first time in 1990 and the second in 1992 with the award of the International Gold Star Quality Prize, given by the Business Initiative Directions, and also in 1996 with the World Quality Commitment Award, given by the JX BAN IMAGEM ARTE, both companied based in Madrid.

The Agency Besieged

After UNITA refused to accept the results of the 1992 elections, similarly to other companies throughout the country, ANGOP also suffered with the consequences of the war that restarted.

On the day that began the attempt by U NITA to seize control of the country`s capital city, five journalists were stranded in the headquarters of ANGOP for three days, the time that lasted the confrontation that was dubbed “The War of Luanda”.

This is an episode that those professionals will never forget, since they were persistent, on behalf of the spirit of journalism, in staying in the workplace, sending information out, at a time that the situation was too perilous to do the job.

In the wake of the war, workers across the town rushed to reach their homes. Everyone new that at any time the conflict would break out and that some of the main targets were the media organs. Despite that, the five ANGOP journalists remained in the agency.

Modernisation

With the war, the Agency saw its development projects “amputated”, mainly that concerning to its extension abroad, as well as an ambitious programme of staff training that was being implemented in view of the country`s peace process. The situation of the company was made worse with the destruction of some of its infrastructures and death of some its employers due to the conflict.

Nevertheless, the effort to keep the national and international public opinion permanently informed proceeds, despite the consequences of a devastating war. In the year it celebrated its 25th anniversary, the Agency started a new phase, searching for modernisation, and mainly seeking for contacts with the whole planet, through its Website.

Since June 2006, ANGOP went through a modernisation process that introduced important technological advances and transformed its Website into an Internet Portal, which besides having a broad up-to-date news service in multimedia, also provides services to the Angolan people and divulges the country`s economic and tourism attractions.