Papers by DW

In the Habitat Agenda adopted in 1996, heads of state and governments committed themselves to two main goals, i.e., “Adequate Shelter for All” and “Sustainable Human Settlements in an Urbanizing World”, and to implement a plan of action based on these goals. In the Millennium Declaration, heads of state and governments committed themselves to improve the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020. They also committed themselves to halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without adequate sustainable access to drinking water and basic sanitation.

The market of Roque Santeiro emerged as an important centre of the informal economy in Luanda in the 1980s as the government encouraged people who had begun to sell on street corners to move to what was, before 1985, a piece of waste ground and informal rubbish tip. Even then, though the government was not in favour of the growth of the informal economy it was unable to prevent it and felt that it could only move it to what was then a marginal location. In the late 1980s and 1990s Roque Santeiro was the largest market in the city (and possibly the largest open-air market in Africa) serving as the main distribution point for other markets as well as selling directly to the public: goods from other areas of Angola and goods imported through the port (a short distance away) were traded in bulk at Roque Santeiro and then traded in smaller quantities in other areas of the market or in other locations.
The informal trading economy in Luanda continued to grow in the decade after the achievement of peace in Angola. The main underlying factor that contributes to the continued importance of the informal trading economy is the shortage of formal employment, which leads to large numbers of people creating their own economic activities in ways that require only small amounts of capital and low levels of skill.
Roque Santeiro was closed in 2010. Many day and casual labourers have lost their livelihoods, a scenario which may have contributed to increased levels of crime and delinquency in Luanda. The market had been a huge source of employment within the city, and its transfer meant a loss of employment for stevedores and ambulant sellers who earned a daily livings there and local house owners who provided overnight temporary warehousing of merchandise.
The Government however has renewed its determined effort to stamp out informal trading in early 2014 by announcing a heavy regime of fines, not only on informal traders, but on their customers as well. The image of the informal trader is seen as an affront to those who wish to promote the vision of Luanda as a world-class modern city, despite the fact that these informal markets still provide essential services and employment to much of the urban population.

El artículo describe cómo el gobierno de Angola ha sido capaz de utilizar la financiación de líneas de crédito de China para construir proyectos de vivienda urbana de prestigio como los gobiernos busca hacer sus ciudades “clase mundial”. En este trabajo se analiza el apoyo del Gobierno de Angola para la ciudad de Kilamba desarrollado público-privada con 20.000 apartamentos. Los apartamentos eran inicialmente demasiado caro para la mayoría de la población, y el Estado ha tenido que sacar más fondos de su presupuesto de vivienda para un esquema de subsidio de alquiler con opción a compra para hacer las unidades asequibles para los funcionarios públicos de nivel medio. El autor sostiene que la oportunidad se está perdiendo de utilizar los ingresos de hoy a partir de recursos naturales de alto precio y la corriente de fácil acceso a las líneas de crédito de China y los conocimientos técnicos para hacer frente a los grandes atrasos en el mejoramiento urbano de la infraestructura de servicios básicos y la vivienda para los pobres. En el documento también se refleja en un período posterior a la independencia anterior cuando se construyeron una serie de nuevas ciudades africanas, dejando a algunos países con décadas de la deuda y el desarrollo estancado. ¿Puede errores de los últimos ofrecen lecciones para el futuro desarrollo urbano de África?

The coastal areas of Angola where urban populations are growing most rapidly experience lower rainfall than inland areas and are subject to sudden storms and high annual variation. In urban coastal areas poorer communities of formerly war displaced have purchased and settled on land that is often at risk from flooding and erosion because these are the only affordable locations near to economic opportunities. There has been serious flooding in Angolan cities in recent years. There is a lack of urban land-use and disaster planning capacity to deal with these issues, though institutions have been created in the last five years. Limited information is available on the vulnerability of these coastal cities, on rainfall variability and trends, on river flows and on areas at risk (now and in the future). Similarly limited demographic and socio-economic information is available.

In the coastal cities of Angola, the intensity and variability of climatic events such as rainstorms and floods have more than doubled over the last 60 years. For much of that period, conflict in the interior provinces was driving people to the relative safety of coastal cities – namely Cabinda, Luanda and the twin cities of Benguela/Lobito – where most settled in marginal and environmentally fragile land at the urban periphery. The growth of these settlements has resulted in the occupation of high risk, low cost land in river basins and swampy coastal locations. Cholera, malaria and other diseases are increasingly serious problems, linked to a lack of safe water and adequate sanitation. Increasing climate variability has compounded those problems, with rainfall tending to come in intense storms, causing flooding. Following floods in 2006, Luanda suffered a cholera epidemic with 35,000 cases reported.

This chapter in Post-Conflict Natural Resource Water Management begins by outlining the structure of water services in Angola after more than forty years of conflict and then, focusing on Luanda in particular, discusses the importance of the informal water market, the main water provider for most of the urban poor. Based on the knowledge gathered by the Development Workshop, the chapter examines Luanda’s peri-urban water value chain and uses value chain analysis to assess Luanda’s water economy. Several factors affecting success in promoting post-conflict access to water are highlighted, including the need for cooperation with informal water service providers, addressing unresolved issues with those providers, and the importance of social capital in the informal water sector. The chapter examines key elements of community-based water management, particularly robust and low-cost technology, sustainability strategies, and water committees and associations, and concludes with recommendations for national post-war strategies.

This paper responds to Vanessa Watson’s article on the inappropriate urban development plans that are increasingly common in sub-Saharan Africa as governments seek to make their cities “world class”. It describes how the government of Angola has been able to use financing from Chinese credit facilities to build prestige projects that include support for the public-privately developed Kilamba city with 20,000 apartments. The apartments were initially too expensive for most of the population, and the state has had to draw further funds from its housing budget for a subsidized rent-to-purchase scheme to make the units affordable for middle-level civil servants. The author argues that an opportunity is being missed to use today’s income from high-priced natural resources and the current easy access to Chinese credit lines and technical expertise to address the very large backlogs in urban upgrading of basic service infrastructure and housing for the poor. The paper also reflects on a previous post-independence period when a number of African new cities were built, leaving some countries with decades of debt and stagnant development. Can errors from the past offer lessons for future African urban development?
KEYWORDS Angola / Chinese

Development Workshop prepared the Angola Housing Finance Chapter for the 2013 Africa Housing Finance Yearbook, published by the Centre for Affordable Housing Finance in Africa. This is the fourth edition of the Housing Finance in Africa Yearbook and reflects the mood and temperature of housing finance markets on the African continent in 2013.

O estudo sobre a migração para Angola foi elaborado pela unidade de pesquisa da Development Workshop, liderada por Andre Melo. Documento preparado por André Joaquim Melo, Development Workshop Angola. Esta publicação foi produzida com a assistência financeira da União Europeia. O conteúdo desta publicação é da inteira responsabilidade do autor e não pode em caso algum ser considerado como reflectindo a posição do Secretariado do Grupo dos Estados de África, Caraíbas e Pacífico (ACP), da União Europeia, da Organização Internacional para as Migrações (OIM) e dos outros membros do consórcio do Observatório ACP das Migrações, do UNFPA ou da Confederação Suíça.

O Observatório ACP das Migrações é uma iniciativa do Secretariado do Grupo dos Estados da África, das Caraíbas e do Pacífico (ACP), financiada pela União Europeia, implementada pela Organização Internacional para as Migrações (OIM) num consórcio com 15 parceiros e com o apoio financeiro da Suíça, da OIM, do Fundo da OIM para o Desenvolvimento e do UNFPA. Fundado em 2010, o Observatório ACP é uma instituição concebida para produzir dados relativos à migração Sul-Sul no Grupo dos Estados ACP para migrantes, para a sociedade civil e para os decisores políticos, bem como para aperfeiçoar as capacidades de investigação nos países ACP para a melhoria da situação dos migrantes e o fortalecimento da relação migração-desenvolvimento.