Presented to the Conference on Adequate and Affordable Housing for All: Research, Policy, Practice in Toronto. Angola’s last four decades of near-continuous war were years of tremendous human suffering, large-scale displacements of the population, heavy damage to property and infrastructure, serious economic losses and accumulation of a massive war debt. At its peak an estimated four million or more than a quarter of the total population was internally displaced. The war has urbanised Angola’s population, and even today, two years after the war ended, more than 50% of the population live in cities. The urban poor in Angola suffer increasing social exclusion that inhibits their full participation in a post war recovery. They have been denied access to the means to pull themselves out of poverty.