After 1974, the deterioration in central planning effectiveness, economic development and growth, security, education and health system efficiency, was rampant. None of the newly independent ex-Portuguese African states made any significant economic progress in the following decades, and political progress in terms of democratic processes and protection of individual human rights was either minimal or nonexistent. With few exceptions, the new regimes ranked at the bottom of human development and GDP per capita world tables. By 2002, however, the end of the Angolan Civil War, combined with exploitation of the country's highly valuable natural resources, resulted in that country becoming economically successful for the first time in decades.