Angola plans to train 38,000 health workers by 2028 under a World Bank-backed initiative aimed at reducing the country’s costly dependence on foreign medical professionals, particularly Cuban doctors, Health Minister Sílvia Lutucuta said.
The Health Human Resources Training Program (PFRHS), running from 2023 to 2028 with US$200 million in World Bank financing, seeks to expand local medical specialization and strengthen Angola’s healthcare system as demand for services grows in the southern African nation of nearly 38 million people.
“Training national professionals is essential for the sustainability of our health system,” Lutucuta said during an address to Angolan medical trainees in Brazil earlier this month.
According to the Ministry of Health, about 11,648 Angolan health workers are currently benefiting from the program. Among them, 1,174 have been sent to Brazil, Cuba and Portugal to pursue advanced medical specializations not yet fully available in Angola.
The initiative forms part of a broader restructuring of Angola’s health workforce as authorities attempt to replace foreign personnel with locally trained professionals.
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The government has in recent years conducted the three largest public recruitment campaigns in the history of the health sector, contributing to a 43.6 percent increase in the number of healthcare workers, ministry data showed.
About 4,000 medical interns are currently enrolled in specialization programs across 39 disciplines inside Angola. In 2025, authorities certified 399 specialists in general and family medicine, a modest figure compared with the country’s healthcare needs but one officials say marks progress toward building domestic expertise.
The program has also expanded local training into highly specialized fields that were previously unavailable in Angola, including neurosurgery, neurology and orthopedics.
On the nursing side, the government has launched its first postgraduate nursing specialization program in the public sector, covering 10 fields and targeting nearly 4,000 nurses.
The training focuses on priority areas such as nephrology, intensive care, anesthesiology, pediatrics, and maternal and neonatal health, sectors where Angola continues to face acute shortages.
Between 2018 and 2022, the number of health workers in Angola rose from 33,093 to 94,846, driven largely by the recruitment of technical nurses, according to official data.
Authorities now aim to improve the qualifications of that expanding workforce through specialized training programs previously unavailable domestically.
The reforms come as Angola seeks to reduce heavy spending on foreign medical staff.
In June 2025, President João Lourenço approved $81 million in spending to recruit 1,012 Cuban medical specialists through Cuba’s Antex Corporation to support hospital operations, according to government information.
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A 2023 World Bank report estimated that around 30 percent of medical specialists working in Angola are foreigners, many of whom are not required to train local counterparts.
Before the current training program began, Angola was spending an average of $76 million annually on foreign healthcare personnel, according to government figures.
Officials say developing local expertise would allow the country to redirect some of those funds toward strengthening domestic health infrastructure and services.
“We need you to help strengthen Angola’s healthcare system for future generations,” Lutucuta told Angolan trainees abroad.
Despite recent recruitment drives, Angola continues to face a severe shortage of healthcare professionals.
The country currently has 2.48 doctors per 10,000 inhabitants, well below the World Health Organization benchmark of 10 health professionals per 10,000 people considered necessary to achieve universal health coverage.
For 2026 alone, the training program has opened 1,403 specialization slots in Brazil, with 771 already filled by selected Angolan professionals.
Authorities say the long-term objective is to create a self-sustaining health workforce capable of meeting Angola’s growing healthcare demands without relying heavily on foreign specialists.
