The Country’s Overview

I/ A LAND OF DIVERSITY ENDOWED WITH NATURAL RESSOURCES AND A RICH CULTURE

HISTORY:

Algeria is known as El Djazair in Arabic and officially as the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria. Its strategic location has attracted many invaders throughout its long and compli­cated history. Algeria has been inhabited by Berbers since at least 10,000 BC. After 1000 BC the Carthaginians began establishing settlements along the Mediterranean coast, followed by Phoenician merchants. In the second century BC the Romans took over the region. In the seventh century the Arabs arrived, though they were later challenged by Spain in the 16th century when it conquered several North African ports, including Algiers, which prompted the Berbers to call upon the Ottomans for protection. The region became an autonomous province of the Ottoman empire in 1517, a situation that lasted until 1830 when France invaded Algeria. The French colonized the country while also making it an integral part of France, a status that would end only with the collapse of the Fourth Republic in 1958. Algeria finally won independence in 1962 after an eight-year war that claimed more than 1m lives.

GEOGRAPHY AND CLIMATE:

In terms of area, Algeria is the largest country of the Mediterranean region and the second largest in Africa. While the country’s total land mass covers 2.38m sq km, nearly 10 times the size of the UK, only 3% of it is arable and 85% is desert. Altogether, Algeria possesses 8.67m ha of agricultural surface area. It shares borders with seven countries – Tunisia, Libya, Niger, Mali, Mauritania, Western Sahara and Morocco. Most of Algeria’s population lives in the Tell, the fertile region spanning the 1200-km Mediterranean coastline. This narrow plain is periodically broken by the Tell Atlas mountain range, also known as the highlands region, while inland the deserts of the Grand Erg Oriental and Occidental give way to the central Tademait plateau. Speckled with oases, the Sahara is mostly flat, except in the south-east where the mountainous Hoggar Massif stands, with Mount Tahat – the highest point in the country – culminating at 3003 meters. The country’s lowest point is Chott Melrhir at 40 meters below sea level.

Algeria boasts a semi-arid climate, which unfortunately suffers from chronic droughts. The climate changes between desert and coastal plain – the former dry and with temperatures often rising over 40°C; the latter enjoying a Mediterranean climate with mild wet winters and hot humid summers, and virtually no rainfall in the summer. Algiers, Oran, Constantine and Annaba are the country’s main cities.

POPULATION:

Algeria’s population was 30m in 2000. According to the National Census of April 16 2008, the Algerian population reached 34.8m in January 2006, with 40% living in the narrow coastal strip that represents just 3% of the country’s territory. The minority population residing in the Sahara is mainly concentrated around oases, although some 1.5m remain nomadic or partly nomadic. The Algerian population is young, with 30% under the age of 15 and just 5% over 65. The capital, Algiers, is the largest city, with an estimated population of 4.5m inhabitants. The south has a few mid-sized cities, including Ghardaia, Bechar, Illizi and Tamanrasset. The Touareg population in these regions is estimated to be approximately 100,000. Population growth, currently at 1.66%, has risen from 1.48% in 2000. Up to 97% of the population is ethnically classified as Berber/Arab and religiously as Sunni Muslim. The few non-Sunni Muslims are mainly Ibadis, representing 1.3%, from the Mzab valley. According to estimates, a mostly foreign Roman Catholic community of about 45,000 people exists, along with approximately 350,000 Protestants

NATURAL RESOURCES:

Natural gas and oil are Algeria’s most important resources. The country has the eighth-largest reserves of natural gas in the world at 4.5trn cu meters and ranks 14th in oil reserves. The fossil fuels energy sector is the backbone of the national economy, accounting for roughly 60% of budget revenues, 30% of GDP and over 98% of export earnings. Algeria’s subsoil is considered to be heavily underexplored, even though the country has produced oil since 1956 and gas since 1961. Reserves of oil and gas are expected to climb in the coming years despite amendments to the Hydrocarbons Law, based on recent discoveries and plans for more exploration drilling, especially by foreign firms and the main national energy company, Sonatrach. In 1964 the country became the first commercial producer of liquefied natural gas, and this segment is increasingly significant. On the mining front, Algeria holds substantial reserves of iron ore, coal, phosphates, uranium, lead, zinc, mercury and gold, which has taken growing importance of late.

II/ A STABLE AND CONFIDENT STATE IS DEVELOPING ON SEVERAL FRONTS

Algeria has continued the process of consolidating its economic and social recovery from the problems of the 1990s and steadily expanding its role on the international scene. The government’s rapidly developing capacity for both resilience and strength has led the country to much-improved stability.

A MUCH STRONGER SOCIETY:

President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has devoted his allout efforts to restore order, and stability. Specifically, he has extended two official amnesties and maintained a consistent stance of forgiveness. The national reconciliation has allowed the country to reinforce social cohesion and stability and to overcome the adverse impact of a painful period that is now over. It has been implemented following the previous policy of civil concord, which was the first step in rebuilding the country.

Close to $150bn are mobilized in order to launch public programs under the ongoing five-year program (2009-2014) as well as regional development plans for the south and highlands.

All the recorded results in the economy’s return to a sustainable growth path and workforce mobilization serve as a guarantee for the continuation of all the achieved gains in the social sphere, such as those in education, culture, health, housing and various other components in the living standards of the citizens.

EXPANSION OF THE ECONOMY:

The abovementioned favorable context, accompanied by structural reforms in all fields, explains Algeria’s renewed economic dynamism. Indeed, economy has registered sustained growth favorable to its integration into the international economic sphere. Most of the means and resources allocated to development programs that are, by their volume and breadth, the most ambitious and important since the country’s independence.

Algeria’s economy has continued to produce very encouraging results, including in those sectors not related to energy that the government has been trying to encourage as part of its policies of liberalization and diversification.

ENCOURAGING PROGRESS:

According to the IMF, Algeria is also making significant progress in its efforts to set the stage for a private sector that can more reliably sustain itself once the current round of public works begins to slow down. A special emphasis is being placed on elements aimed at boosting private investment by developing protection for investors and more efficient means of financial intermediation.

THE IMPORTANCE OF EDUCATION:

Another essential building block for the continuing turnaround of Algeria’s economy is a more competitive workforce, and the emphasis here has been on the long term. A nationwide study begun in 2000 led to the launching of an ambitious reform and modernization program in 2004, and the government has allocated considerable resources in its bid to provide better schooling. The single most telling statistic might be the fact that in little more than a decade attendance at public schools has more than doubled. For a society that was almost systematically denied education until independence in 1962 and has only recently emerged from a lengthy difficult period, this qualifies as a significant achievement.