O presente estudo que titulamos Plano Director Geral Metropolitano de Luanda: O
agendamento pretende responder como questão, o surgimento na agenda do Governo Provincial de Luanda, em Angola, da necessidade da elaboração dum Plano Director Metropolitano. Para responder a questão de partida, definimos os seguintes objectivos: Geral – Analisar o agendamento do Plano Director Geral Metropolitano de Luanda. E Específicos: Identificar os actores determinantes na elaboração do plano em estudo; Relatar os elementos imprescindíveis no que tange aos problemas, alternativas disponíveis e conjunturas políticas que fomentaram a elaboração do Plano Director Geral Metropolitano de Luanda; Narrar os procedimentos políticos indispensáveis para o agendamento da medida de política. Para a presente pesquisa utilizamos essencialmente a pesquisa qualitativa, com destaque para pesquisa bibliográfica e documental.

Informal economy workers in Angola, like in many parts of the world and specifically the African continent, are among the most vulnerable when it comes to jobs, economical safety, and protection. Not only because the informal economy is characterised by higher levels of uncertainty about integration; profits and income;
protection from job performance threats; but because the systems in place do not respond to specific features and conditions of informal work and do not consider the significance of the informal economy today. Particularly, in a context of accelerated urbanisation, the informal economy does not require much initial capital; implies less investment in infrastructure, schooling and professional qualifications; and is,
therefore, adapted to both the conditions of poor families and urban migrants. In Sub-Saharan Africa, 66 per cent of employment is in the informal economy, with a predominance of self-employment.1 However, incomes are generally, low, irregular and insufficient.2.

The EU is the largest single donor supporting human rights and civil society in Angola today. This support is seen by these actors as invaluable to their continued existence and to opening up the space in which civil society can operate. The scale-down of the activities of humanitarian organizations in Angola and the departure of the UN Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has led to a consequent reduction of financial support and strategic coordination of many human rights and democracy-related activities. This has placed increasing expectations on the EU Delegation and civil society clearly looks to it not just as a donor, but as a
‘champion of human rights and democracy’. (see section 2 of this report for more details).

A burgeoning literature looks into the processes and actors involved in the adoption and emulation of best practices and models of urban policy and development across the globe, often with the aim of attracting investment and making cities more competitive. With its focus on leisure, tourism and global capital, the redevelopment of the Bay of Luanda, in the capital of Angola, echoes the rhetoric, policies and projects underpinning such practices. Yet, a deeper interrogation reveals that the redevelopment forms part of a predominantly inward-looking project driven by the highest echelons of the national government and its ruling party. While these actors mimic and appropriate the language and tools of entrepreneurial cities, their aim is not necessarily to make the city more internationally competitive but to achieve domestic political legitimacy and stability.

My paper discusses the emergence of new regimes of mutuality in the context of a crisis in the built environment of Luanda. By 1991, Luanda’s city centre had suffered years of neglect and talk of an urban crisis abounded. The Angolan government decided that the only way out of the crisis was through the sale of state property. However, privatisation did not simply imply a transfer of ownership from the state to former long-term lessees willing to purchase their homes; the process also had a number of unintended consequences. This paper argues that the Angolan
government’s property privatisation process ended up constituting mutuality from above, by forcing residents of apartment blocks into formal associations. It has not prevented buildings in downtown Luanda from further decay and has brought about new sites of property litigation.