The overcrowded peri-urban slums of Luanda (where over two-thirds of the population of Angola now lives) are clearly unhealthy places to live. However, very little information on environmental health is available which might be used to plan rehabilitation programmes, and whatever information there is tends to be dispersed, inaccessible and difficult to use. This proposal is for the development of a database, and a Geographical Information System, of appropriate environmental health indicators for a significant, representative area of peri-urban Luanda. This is the first phase of a programme to develop national capacity to collect and use data, through GIS, on environmental health that can assist in the planning of national reconstruction.
Development Workshop already has extensive experience in the peri-urban areas of Luanda, has access to what little information exists, and includes information collection as part of its existing programmes in peri-urban areas. It is already providing technical assistance to a GIS mapping project for the Angolan Government’s landmines survey, and is training a senior technician from the Institute of Physical Planning in GIS. Spatial data from paper maps, airphotos and satellite images will be transformed to a digitised form by the GIS. This will be linked with information on the natural environment, infrastructure, human settlements, demography and public health; these kinds of information will come from routine and project reports, technical archives, existing maps and reports and from data collection by the project team.
The present proposal covers the first phase of the programme, which will last nine month and which will cover procurement of GIS equipment, the training of a team, data collection, the creation of a map-base and preliminary data dissemination. This will serve as a laboratory for the development of tools and a model database, and the formation of a team of five national technicians with a working knowledge of GIS and assessment skills (drawn from existing partner organisations of Development Workshop).
Later phases of the programme (for which funding is being sought from other sources) will cover the creation of an environmental assessment network for peri-urban Luanda, made up of organisations who will share compatible GIS system tools and data gathering formats, who will be able to share information on peri-urban Luanda, jointly create an effective monitoring system and be able to monitor the impact of individual programmes.
