Luís Jimbo, presidente do Instituto Angolano de Sistemas Eleitorais e Democracia (IASED) foi o prelector no espaço denominado “ Debates a Sexta feira” da Development Workshop Angola, trouxe-nos a reflexão sobre a “ Posição do OBEA em relação a proposta de lei eleitoral das eleições autárquicas em Angola.
Ao longo da sua abordagem trouxe ideias interessantes que por sua vez foram apresentadas ao MAT a fim de não só prestar o seu contributo como organização, mas também para elucidar os cidadãos do que verdadeiramente são as autarquias locais de modo que todos tenham conhecimento da mudança e inovação que se pretende realizar no País e não apenas uma minoria da população.
O que se procurou trazer para esta reflexão foi a questão da participação activa dos cidadãos, as mudanças que o OBEA sugeriu ao MAT trazendo pontos úteis para o melhoramento e aperfeiçoamento da proposta de lei sobre o pacote autárquico sendo que muitas das que o MAT optou não seriam as mais viáveis para se implementarem.

Angola is the most rapidly urbanizing country in southern Africa and experienced the world’s highest average annual economic growth between 2001 and 2010, mainly because of revenues from oil and diamonds. In 2014 income distribution remained extremely unequal, and the country produced very little in terms of manufactured goods.
The cost of living remained very high, especially in the capital city of Luanda. However, the precipitous fall in the price of oil in 2014 had a massive effect on public spending, especially for social development. The government introduced several rounds of budget cuts and spending freezes, with more predicted to follow in 2015. Many international organizations have recently
withdrawn from Angola and most national CSOs depended on foreign funding. Many CSOs saw their sources of income disappear. It is estimated that fewer than 10 percent of registered CSOs implemented projects in 2014.

In 2014 a new policy for the country’s administrative divisions was introduced. Among other changes, a new layer of administrators emerged, which delayed the implementation of some
activities. In addition, CSO participation in citizens’ councils (CACS) was affected, as municipalities were not yet functioning and therefore CACS activities were confined to the district level.

Allan Cain was invited as keynote speaker on the 50th year commemoration of the founding of the School of Architecture at the University of Waterloo. Allan, in one of the first groups of students, spoke about the significance of 1968, the year that the social movement for the “Right to the City” was launched. He spoke about participating in the first school field trip to Chicago that year, that was designed for an immersion in ‘modern-movement architecture’ but resulted in his introduction to radical student politics of the SDS and a life-long passion for urban-blues music. Allan spoke about founding Development Workshop with a group of grad-students at the AA and their four and a half decade trajectory of building with vulnerable communities in turbulent times in war-torn and post-conflict countries in the Sahel, the Middle East, Southern Africa and South East Asia. Fifty years later Allan is still engaged in the right to the city movement and challenged students with a social and activist view of the practice of architecture.