The role of the município in public services, poverty reduction and participation in Angola

To provide insights to the overall questions of the role of the município in the future local governance in the country:

• Poverty reduction & decentralisation - PMIDRCP: What pro-poor results have this programme produced in its five-year existence? Being a município-level programme managed from the Ministry of Commerce, does it fit or clash with the general aims of decentralisation and the creation of autarquias?
• Public services: How do local citizens in Luanda and Moxico see the development of the public services (education, health, civil and electoral registry, the justice system) in general? Are there indications that recent efforts at increased local (de-concentrated) service provision produced notable results to alleviate poverty?
• Participation: Does the decentralisation process create spaces for participation – for citizens and for critical voice in civil society and opposition parties? In the absence of autarquias in the country, which structures and entities – formal and informal, traditional and recent, state and civil society based – shape participation locally? Our expectation is that there is great variations between the urban and rural localities.