Linking the Urban Poor to Decentralized Funds
Luanda is Angola’s capital and most populous city, with a population of approximately six million people, of which 60% live in poverty and 15% live in extreme poverty. An estimated 60% of Angola’s population lives in cities, three-quarters of whom reside in informal urban and peri-urban settlements. Four decades of ongoing armed conflict in Angola resulted in widespread insecurity throughout the country, producing significant migration to Luanda. Now that the conflict has ended, the government has more resources to invest in communities. The lack of a strong tradition of government and civil society representatives working together for community improvements, however, limits the urban poor’s ability to respond to the problems facing their communities.
The passing of a decentralization law in January 2007 and a new constitution in 2010 have helped open and democratize Angola’s political environment. The timing of the Urbis program was thus significant because it provided civil society representatives with the skills necessary to act as viable partners in their efforts to influence the government’s decentralization process.
DIG partnered with the national Angolan NGO Development Workshop (DW). Activities focused on helping three community-based organization (CBO) networks (with a combined membership of over 120 organizations) in the Luanda municipalities of Sambizanga, Cazenga and Cacuaco influence municipal-level planning and budgeting to reflect the priorities of the municipalities’ two million residents. The Urbis program’s capacity building interventions enhanced formal mechanisms for engagement between local government, CBOs, and the private sector, as well as built the capacity of CBO advocacy skills to articulate community priorities to local government officials more effectively.
Results: Beginning in September 2008, the Urbis team conducted trainings in resource mobilization, public speaking, negotiation and conflict mitigation, as well as workshops to educate the urban poor about the decentralization legislation. The Urbis program also helped establish public forums that brought together civil society and municipal government representatives in the three municipalities, and supported the creation and development of a community newsletter in Cacuaco. These activities created opportunities for civil society and government representatives to discuss the critical development needs of the urban poor communities openly.
As a result, the networks can now influence decisions related to urban planning and community development projects more effectively. For example, in Sambizanga, the government invested USD 50,000 to repair an electricity transformation post, restoring power to a community that had not had electricity for the last five years. In Cazenga, the community groups successfully advocated for the government to spend USD 35,000 on road improvements.
Importantly, the networks have established themselves as reliable sources of information about community needs. In 2010, the central government established a community driven needs-assessment tool called a municipal profile, which aims to help devolve more spending decisions to the municipalities. The profiles present an opportunity for communities to direct government priorities toward infrastructure and development projects in a way that has not been possible in the past.
The Urbis program left a legacy of improved dialogue between civil society and local government officials, which should allow stakeholders to discuss project implementation in a participatory setting – a novelty in a country that went directly from colonialism to four decades of civil war.
