The Angolan Women’s Organisation (OMA) several year sage joined with, the National Institute of Public Health (INSP) and (GARM) the Gabinete para a Renovação dos Musseques (Office for Musseques Upgrading) in planning several programmes for upgrading sanitation conditions and infrastructure in Luanda. Pilot programmes focussing on two townships, one an old Musseque in the heart of the city and the second on the urban periphery, were planned. This report is a result of a request from OMA and INSP for Development Workshop in Luanda to carry out a study of appropriate sanitation technologies for upgrading programmes in these musseques.
The long-term urban crisis in Angola’s capital Luanda has been exacerbated during “Emergency” by the influx of Displaced Persons comings in areas destabilised by insurgents. Ongoing cycles of political disruption and localized rural drought dating back to the independence war against Portuguese colonialism remain unbroken today and fuel this rural to urban migration. An extremely high population growth rate of 8 percent has resulted in Luanda in the years since independence. As Angola enters a new era of peace and reconstruction the pressures on urban centres like Luanda are unlikely to abate as refugees from abroad and returnees from the bush are reintegrated into national society.