In Angola’s urban areas, the poor depend on the informal economy. Retailing in the informal sector market is the principal “coping mechanism” for the urban poor in Luanda. The informal market is dominated by women, many of them heads of households and a large portion of them originally migrants to the city.
Rather than recognising the entrepreneurial creativity of informal sector marketers as an opportunity for inclusion into a post-war economic strategy, punitive policies have increasingly made it difficult for the poor to carry out their businesses in the streets particularly in the urban centre of Luanda. The poor have few opportunities to scale up or transform their informal business activities by borrowing from banks. They, arguably, are “poor risks” since they can guarantee no collateral. They are therefore obliged to pay extremely high interest rates to parallel market money dealers for very short term loans, often leaving them in chronic debt.
Development Workshop’s microfinance programmes in both Luanda and Huambo offer models to both Government and the private sector of how informal traders and small scale produces can pull themselves out of poverty and provide local economic opportunities through appropriate credit and savings mechanisms.
DW pioneered microfinance in Angola in 1996, and since 1999 the Sustainable Livelihoods Programme – SLP – has supported thousands of micro-entrepreneurs, (65% were women) with access to loans and savings.
DW led the field with the creation of KixiCredito (www.kixicredito.com), a self-sustainable micro-credit institution that helps improve the quality of life of economically active poor communities. KixiCredito has a portfolio of over 10,000 clients supported through seven branches in Luanda and Huambo provinces.
Today, DW continues to identify, assess, and monitor opportunities in Angola that support the country’s ongoing economic reconstruction.
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Luanda Peri-Urban Gender & Household Profile
Publication Date: July 1, 2002
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Women’s Empowerment or Feminisation of Debt
Publication Date: March 1, 2002
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This report is based on discussions at the international conference Women’s empowerment or feminisation of debt? Towards a new agenda in African microfinance organized by One World Action. The report contributes to the November 2002 meeting of the Micro-Credit Summit Campaign.
Sustainable Livelihood Project: Business Development Needs Assessment & Development Plan
Publication Date: July 1, 2000
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This report present the activities, and subsequent results related to a Development Workshop micro/small enterprise consultancy that took place from the 22nd of May through the 11th of July 2000. The main purpose of this consultancy was to undertake an assessment of micro/small enterprises in three areas (Sambizanga, Cacuaco, and Cazenga) of Luanda and develop a BDS program that could provide appropriate support initiatives to chosen subsectors.
O Financiamento Informal: Kixikila Sambizanga
Publication Date: September 1, 1998
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O financiamento informal e as estrategias de sobrevivencia economica das mulheres em Angola: a Kixikila no municipio do Sambizanga, Luanda. Em Africa existe uma longa tradicao demonstrativa da utilizacao de esquemas de ajuda mutua, particularment ao nivel da utilizacao rotativa de poupancas e credito por parte de indiciduos que desenvolvement micro actividades economicas, na maior parte dos casos nao totalmente integradas na economia formal.
Participatory Sub-Sector Study on the Marketing of Fish
Publication Date: May 1, 1996
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Development Workshop has initiated a project entitled the Women ‘s Enterprise Development in Luanda. The goal of the project is to improve the economic well-being of women in the informal sector of the economy in Luanda, and contribute to local and national policies and activities which reduce constraints and improve opportunities for women small entrepreneurs. The purpose of the project is to enable women micro-entrepreneurs to develop their abilities and skills to address constraints they face in operating their enterprises.
Women’s Enterprise Development Programme
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The target group analysis for the present project focuses on a group of thirty women entrepreneurs from the informal sector working and living in the district of N’Gola Kiluange, which is an urban musseque community in Sambizanga Municipality, located at 8km from the centre of Luanda. Before independence the area was zoned as an industrial district with a low density population. Today the population of the area has grown dramatically and is fuelled by an increasing rate of rural urban migration. The informal sector in N’Gola Kiluange is an important part of community life. Everything from day to day purchases of basic consumer goods to shoe shines to car maintenance to health care is available in the informal market. As yet, there is no precedent, either NGO or governmental for a planned intervention to provide technical assistance, financing or training to improve, develop or support entrepreneurial activities within the informal sector in Angola.
Ngola Kiluanje: Report on Micro-Industries
Publication Date: September 1, 1992
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This informal sector and micro-industry survey was carried out as part of the Sambizanga Project by activistas working with this project. The survey was done in the commune of Ngola Kiluange which consists of four sectors: Central, Sao Jose, Sao Pedro da Barra and Val Saroca. The coordinator of the Sambizanga Project is Orquidea Saraiva. The preliminary micro-industry inventory was made from July-September 1991.