ACORD

One of Africa's major oil producers, Angola is also one of the world's poorest countries, with one of the continent's lowest life expectancy rates. Angola is striving to tackle the physical, social and political consequences of the 27-year civil war that ravaged the country after it gained independence. The country faces the daunting tasks of rebuilding its devastated infrastructure, of retrieving weapons from its heavily-armed civilian population and of resettling tens of thousands of refugees and IDPs who fled the fighting. Millions of Angolans are dependent on food aid.

Angola has committed to a political decentralization framework in a context where the structures and the mind set is still inclined to top-down approaches and government implementation capacity is very weak. Civil society also remains weak, with most NGOs involved in service delivery. The current political and economical governance system offer limited space for citizenship movement and political accountability mechanisms. Moreover, Angola experiences huge social and economic inequalities due to the inheritance of colonialism, the collapse of socialism and the implication of an open policy of liberalization that has allowed systemic corruption, marginalization and elitism. There are also significant disparities between regions. ACORD Angola works mainly in 4 provinces: Luanda, Namibe, Bie (Camaculpa and Catabola municipalities) and Huila.

The mission of ACORD Angola is that the Civil Society Organizations, the state authorities at the local level and the traditional power institutions increase and show their capacity for defending and promoting the interests of the local people they work for. ACORD Angola will contribute to the reduction of the causes of poverty, social exclusion and vulnerability of poor communities in isolated areas in Angola. More specifically the objectives are to:

Thematic Focus

Governance and Decentralization: In the context of political decentralization, ACORD builds the capacity of municipal authorities in budget management and planning as well as participatory approaches sensitive to gender. Similarly, ACORD work with CBOs and NGOs to strengthen their abilities to engage with the local authorities in bottom up planning processes and in negotiation processes around critical issues like land. ACORD has been facilitating a series of round table debates between civil society and government in Huila province.

 

Conflict: ACORD is engaged in the reintegration of ex-combatants in the province of Bie (Camaculpa and Katabola municipalities). Activities include supporting the ex-combatants' access to credit, training in management capacity, provide space for dialogue and use of traditional reconciliation mechanisms to help their integration in the community. ACORD actively build NGO capacity to sustain the process. ACORD has also undertaken research on community conflict transformation and is engaged in projects to foster a culture of peace, with a particular focus on young people.

 

HIV & AIDS: ACORD Angola seeks to mainstream HIV & AIDS in all its work. ACORD is building the capacity of its partner organizations to: i) Promote behaviour change and help prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS among communities; ii) Promote HIV/AIDS awareness through information dissemination and advocacy to defend the rights of the infected and affected. ACORD is also engaged in HIV & AIDS related research and participates actively in HIV & AIDS networks.

 

Livelihoods: ACORD is: i) Promoting food security projects by supporting agricultural and livestock production and self-employment in the informal sector, ii) Promoting income generating activities by providing micro-finance schemes and iii) Empowering the people through provision of technical competencies in business management, financial management and information technology. ACORD is also engaged in advocacy at national level to draw attention to the difficulties facing the poor to access credit and influence policy making to improve the macro economic environment in favour of the poor. ACORD is also actively involved in the advocacy network on land and PRSP issues, building on the knowledge and relationships from the community level.

 

Gender: ACORD is engaged in gender research intended to shed more light on aspects like domestic violence, the women role in the economy and impact of HIV/AIDS on women.  

Who We Work With

ACORD is working at community level with IDPs, returnees, ex-combatants, host communities and local government both in rural and urban areas. ACORD's main emphasis is on supporting the capacity of CBOs or NGOs to work with communities and to carry out the agenda of social action by building their competencies in policy literacy, accessing to information and building critical awareness on policy and practices. At national level ACORD is a member of the network of international NGOs.