Angola

Following the first parliamentary elections in 16 years, an elected multi-party government took office in September 2008. The economy continues to do well, although rising inflation and rising international food prices have affected the country.

Working with communities

The Plan Alto area, traditionally Angola’s “food basket”, was badly damaged during the civil war (1975-2002). As a result, Angola currently imports a large amount of its food. This causes problems, but we are working to ensure communities in the Plan Alto area are able to work, produce food and feed their families.

In total, 9,540 poor and vulnerable families have benefited from this livelihoods programme. There are livestock distribution credit schemes, improved and increased agricultural process and support for local organisations. 

Educating and co-ordinating

We have reached 198 teachers through our distance learning programme, with basic and higher-level teacher training. At national policy level, we participated in a number of education forums – including Educators’ Day and national meetings of the Education for All network. We also organised a conference which set up a way for non-governmental organisations to work with the government.

Concern is introducing a primary education programme for schools in the Cachingues community in Bie. We’ll be working with the local education authorities to improve the quality of teaching. We’ll also be making these programmes more easily accessible to vulnerable communities.

Leadership

We have also focused on forming and strengthening community development committees. These provide leadership support to a pool of community volunteers, including farmers, HIV and AIDS activists and animal health workers.

Planting and seeds

Through our community-run seed banks, 3,035 families accessed at least 10kg of seeds each for 2008/09 planting season. This is a significant step for communities that experience up to nine months of hunger in a year and have depended on free food deliveries for more than three decades. 45 seed banks were built in 2008.

HIV and AIDS

Life skills and AIDS education programmes are under way in 12 schools, where teachers run anti-AIDS clubs. Each of these has approximately 50 student members. We also trained 114 community agents in 57 villages to raise awareness about HIV, AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases and gender issues.

Video diary

The following video is an account of an evaluation trip to Angola undertaken by overseas department staff member Michael Hanley.