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3.3Effectiveness, Inclusiveness and Sustainability

The engagement with government in particular is impressive given the previously closed nature of government institutions and the traditional mistrust between government and NGOs.

Some important levels of engagement seem likely to sustain without LUPP support. LUPP partners (DW, SCUK and CARE) have together successfully won the contract to implement USAID’s MDP in the five provincial municipalities. This will enable continued engagement with MAT and the decentralisation framework development. The focus of these programmes however is not Luanda-based and therefore the focus on the most severe urban poverty is somewhat diluted. CARE will continue engagement with MINEA as a key partner of USAID’s Increased Access to Electricity Project.

Engagement in micro-finance will maintain through the financial sustainability of KixiCredito, although maintaining its pro-poor mission will rely on the continued influence of DW.

Sustained engagement of CSOs is doubtful without continued support – federations and alliances depend in part on the shape of the institutionalisation of the decentralisation process although without LUPP’s focused support to promote formal ‘spaces’ for community/government dialogue this may be lost. It is not clear the extent to which this may be maintained through UNDP’s focus on fiscal decentralisation and the FAS focus on community-based planning, but it seems unlikely that LUPP’s direct support will be replicated in these programmes. With the exception of Kilamba Kiaxi, the programmes are not operating in the LUPP municipalities in Luanda. The EU water and sanitation programme will support the development of water committees in Cazenga and Mulemba and will overlap in part with LUPP’s SCSP project area, albeit following a somewhat different management model (see Section 4 below).

Engagement is less sustainable on the general issue of urban poverty where LUPP has been the only programme with an exclusive focus on the musseques of Luanda. This has given it a pre-eminent position within forums such as those discussing the PRSP, community-based service delivery and urban micro-finance and enterprise development.

4Participatory governance, networks & social dynamics

4.1Achievements

Key entry points for this have been savings, micro-enterprise and service provision (water, latrines, solid waste, electricity and crèches).

LUPP has thus developed a wide range of groups, networks and forums.

At community level, mutual interest groups have been promoted through water committees, savings groups, consumer cooperatives and PIC parent committees. The LURE project has also developed area-based (ODA) committees for community development planning.

Where possible these have been federated into coalitions or networks of CBOs such as associations of water committees, savings cooperatives and the commune-wide Hoji-Ya-Henda Alliance (APDCH), and the federations of ODAs in Kilamba Kiaxi.

Wider networks have also been created, for example, to support micro-entrepreneurs and micro-finance organisations such as RASME.

This process has been an effective approach to build community social capital and to develop community ‘voice’. This is an impressive achievement within an environment of relatively new neighbourhoods with little social cohesion, high levels of crime and comprising of households competing for scarce income and basic services.

Evidence of improving social cohesion is provided by the success of most of the interest groups (see discussion of service delivery models in Section 4 below). Developing community ‘voice’ is evidenced by the success of forums of accountability such as the municipal-level Kilamba Kiaxi Development Forum and commune councils in Hoji-Ya-Henda and Ngola Kiluange (Cazenga and Sambizanga Municipalities respectively).

LUPP, particularly through the CARE LURE project, has been successful in operationalising legislation and GoA constitutional and policy commitments¹⁹ which provide for a degree of participatory governance within communal and municipal administrations. Using this framework for consultative councils and through the development of are-based residents committees, CARE has since 2003 promoted in partnership with the Municipal Administration the Kilamba Kiaxi Development Forum. In Cazenga and Sambizanga, SCUK and DW have activated the Consultative commune councils and a Municipal Forum is being developed in Sambizanga.

These forums have been successful in demonstrating vibrant and constructive exchange between communities and government, developing accountability and ultimately partnership for area development. Within the KKDF, LURE also introduced a Municipal Development Fund which has provided a vehicle for community-based participatory planning, for community-municipal partnerships for small project development, capacity-building for municipal planning and budgeting, and a challenge fund to improve performance.

Both municipal forums and commune councils have developed a momentum such that other municipalities are seeking help to establish their own. The KKDF in particular has influenced government and donor programmes (see 1.1 above).

As important, the forums are developing spaces for community ‘voice’. This is a particularly significant achievement within an historically highly centralised, top-down government culture. In the words of one prominent civil society activist, “Angola is in an important phase, showing significant changes from 3-4 years ago: government is showing some ownership of the (participation) process, allowing this exchange to happen and replicate; and communities are developing confidence and capacity”²⁰. Evidence of the latter is given by communities in Cazenga municipality demanding the appointment of communal administrators for their communes. A key achievement of the KKDF has been the extension of the water distribution network in to the musseques of Golfe2 and and Camama communes following representations by communities there to the Municipal Administrator who subsequently intervened with EPAL. In HYH, the community has successfully lobbied the commune and municipal administration for restoration of water supply to standposts and an improvement in policing.

In addition to these processes of participatory governance and accountability, LUPP is also demonstrating models for accountability of service providers to users through its work on water supply (see section 4 below). For municipal administrations, LUPP has begun the development of a GIS platform which can assist more effective planning and delivery of services. The GPL has committed to place urban planners at an influential Deputy Administrator level within the Municipal Administrations to support the use of GIS. With FAS, LUPP has also commenced the development of a web-based Municipal Information Centre in KK municipality to increase public access to municipal information and administration.