A Sideways Walk searching for the Path to Angola’s Social Justice and Development Guilherme Santos (ACORD Angola)

ACORD was funded in 1976 and established itself in Angola ten years later. Until 1998, its work was inspired in the development model, with an approach to mitigate poverty based on access to and transfer of resources, skills and implementation of projects to and with the communities. An approach centred on the consequences of poverty.

The armed conflict at that time was so violent that destroyed all the work done in the country’s northern region, in the province of Uíge, where ACORD worked in the first years supporting farmers’ associations to self-organising and to mobilise their production factors.

Eighteen years later and the peoples of that province supported then by ACORD are in the same or worst economic and social situation. What kind of analysis does this picture suggests? Amongst others, it believe it is fundamental to deal with the problems of poverty and conflict, not merely from a consequence stance, but mainly from their causes, which are local, endogenous, global, structural and exogenous.

In the years after 1992, there were profound changes in the Angolan society: entrance into a multiparty system and elections, abrupt shift to the new development model of the market economy inspired in the neoliberal system, and the return to the armed conflict, post-electoral one, which profoundly held back the country. All of ACORD’s work in the municipality of Kalukembe, Huíla, between 1991 and 1992, supporting populations that had fled from war to return to their villages, was once again lost. The lesson is the same!

From 1993 onwards, the work done with poor and excluded communities of the suburban neighbourhoods of Viana II, Zangada and Marçal in the municipality of Rangel in Luanda, in the Sofrio and Caluva neighbourhoods in the city of Lubango, Huíla Province, together with ADRA, was able to improve access to basic social services and generate a social capital within the communities. However, most of the population is considerably worst in what concerns its economic conditions, which considerably diminished. Another evidence of the abovementioned!

Comparing with ACORD’s first years, the context has changed profoundly in the last few years with the emergence of an Angolan civil society, a political openness and the presence of other development international organisations, with different approaches and methods, from paternalistic and assistencialist to the promotion of structured development based on human capacities, as ACORD does.

Based on this learning process, ACORD changed its paradigm and conception of dealing with poverty and development issues. ACORD’s new approach

1 combines in the field programming, research and advocacy for social justice: answering to the population basic needs and rights and developing work in attempting to influence policies, practices and attitudes, from the local to the provincial, regional, national and international levels. This involves supporting actors in the search for their rights, firstly complying with their duties.

In the global framework, Africa’s poverty and hindrance are a marked contrast to the developed world’s prosperity. Globalisation offers the potential for a socially fair world only if the global relations systems are at everyone’s reach. Due to the rhythm of globalisation, an immediate intervention is needed in order to reduce marginality and social exclusion in Africa, through processes that build upon present opportunities at all levels. It is also necessary to confront the institutions that, either at local, national or international level perpetuate and exacerbate a structural injustice that simply results in social exclusion inside African societies and between Africa and the rest of the world.

Based on the experience and analysis of the issued Africa faces, ACORD develops work on the following thematic areas: conflicts, overcoming discrimination, improving living means and conditions, HIV/AIDS and social action. It works with people in need and acts through research and action; support to local organisations; mobilisation of resources; and alliance with other organisations.

Since 1998, ACORD Angola develops a new approach of organisational and institutional reinforcement and development through (non formal) training – capacity-building and structures accompaniment of local development organisations and the State’s local administration in sustainable development projects.

ACORD works in five provinces (Bié, Huíla, Cunene, Namibe and Luanda), in 11 of the 168 municipalities; it directly supported 40 national development institutions, organisations and groups; it actively participates in 10 networks on Land, Microfinance, Gender, HIV/AIDS, Institutional Innovation, Local Power and Decentralisation, Fight against Poverty, institutional strengthening of Civil Society Organisation; and HIV/AIDS at the CONGA level, network of International NGOs in Angola, that involves over 200.000 indirect and direct beneficiaries.

ACORD also influences people in terms of knowledge, attitudes and practices, the organisations in terms of capacity, credibility, leadership, mission and perspective, as well as the society, in what concerns issues of HIV/AIDS, development methodology, issues of land, social exclusion, land legislation and policy, non formal education methodology, social processes and so on.

At the moment, ACORD implements the following projects: - Support to 12 local development organisations in the municipalities of Viana and Rangel in Luanda;

2 - Institutional reinforcement through training, capacity-building, technical assistance, participatory planning, resource facilitation and mobilisation for the communal and municipal administrations of Catabola and Camacupa, in the province of Bié; - Support to civil society organisations working to fight poverty in the South of Angola, in the provinces of Huíla, Namibe and Cunene; - Support to the social reintegration of former combatants in the municipality of Chipindo, province of Huíla, and in the municipalities of Catabola and Camacupa, province of Bié.

All the abovementioned projects have an approach on reinforcing social capital, a transversal component on citizenship and human rights; a awareness raising methodology on HIV/AIDS and human and gender relations in Huíla, Namibe and Cunene; as well as the participatory action of citizens in the fight for their basic rights without recurring to violence, in Huíla (Chipindo and Quilengues) and Cunene (Kwanhama).

ACORD is presently developing the following research: - Research on CAPC (Knowledge, Attitudes, Practices and Behaviours) towards HIV/AIDS in Munhino (Kapangombe), Namibe, Lubango and Matala, Huíla, and Santa Clara, Cunene, with the aim of helping to elaborate working strategies and methods with the communities and presenting results to the political decision centres; - CAPC Research on HIV/AIDS in Marçal, municipality of Rangel, Luanda; - CAPC Research on gender, for a better understanding of domestic violence problems against women in Camacupa, Bié; - Research on how to help people fighting for their rights without recurring to violence, in the municipality of Chipindo and Quilengues (Huíla) and Kwanhama (Cunene), based on oral testimony methods.

The aims are: a) To present and disseminate gender “reality” to decision makers, other community members and SCO members in the municipality of Camacupa; b) To promote behaviour changes in regards to gender issues; c) To encourage constant dialogue and respect on gender issues within civil society; d) To enhance, through debates and training, the existence of women’s groups from civil society.

ACORD Angola is run by a Country Area Programme Director. The implementation structure is geographically divided in three Units – South, Centre and North –, provinces, municipalities and projects. In institutional terms, the work unit is the municipality. The implementation structure is composed by an ACORD Management Board of three people: the Director, the Accountant and Management; the Projects’ Coordinators, the communitarian development technicians or training facilitators and administrative and support staff. In total, technician staff is composed of 17, 6 of them women. All ACORD staff is Angolan.

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Guilherme Santos February 2005

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