Background and objectives:
Angola is emerging from twenty years of war, physical destruction and a social, economic and financial crisis. During Angola's first round table conference, held in Brussels in September 1995, the Government presented the Community Rehabilitation and National Reconciliation Programme (CRNRP), for consolidating peace, encouraging national reconciliation and resuming economic and social development.  The programme anticipations in the rehabilitation of productive capacity and basic infrastructure. UN-HABITAT developed a subprogramme covering one of the five priority target areas, rehabilitation of Government facilities in the provinces. UN-HABITAT provides technical support for rehabilitation of minimal government facilities in the 18 provinces, allow the provincial governments to undertake effectively their responsibilities and to support the Government in developing the housing and infrastructure component of the community rehabilitation programme by preparing project documents for specific reconstruction projects.

Activities:
The UN-HABITAT Technical Support Unit was set up in September 1996. Programme implementation has focused on building local capacity based on a policy of support, enablement, training, improving physical infrastructure, creation of job opportunities for the community and promotion of partnerships between the Government, non-governmental organizations and the private sector. Activities include rehabilitation of public buildings, rehabilitation of physical and social infrastructure and advisory services to the Central Technical Support Unit in the Ministry of Planning.  Rehabilitation activities have expanded to 10 provinces in Angola. An evaluation of the programme has begun, and a documentary video has been prepared on the programme and the UN-HABITAT rehabilitation activities in Angola.

Results:
Methodological tools, such as a physical and social infrastructure rehabilitation manual, identification and formulation of projects and a methodological guide and a computer programme to ensure a transparent bidding process, have been prepared. These tools are being tested before publication. One annual report and quarterly technical and financial reports have been distributed. All rehabilitation activities have been completed in 10 provinces, and the provincial authorities have approved the quality and standard of the buildings.

An internal evaluation of the implementation process has been completed, and a tripartite review, held in May 1999, after phase 1, stated that UN-HABITAT had completed most of its work. It was agreed that the UN-HABITAT role should be enlarged to cover the rehabilitation of basic infrastructure and housing as one of the four components of the programme. Within the housing component of the programme, UN-HABITAT assisted the Ministry of Public Works and a private firm to prepare of a low-cost housing programme called Luanda Sul.  This project was awarded the Dubai Best Practices Award in 2000.