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Photo: Development Workshop
 RealAudio
clip:Click to hear Allan
Cain speaking from Luanda, capital of Angola.
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Thirty years of civil war have devastated Angola, a country about the size of
Manitoba and Saskatchewan on the southwest coast of Africa. In recent years as people
trying to escape the ravaged countryside flood into the capital, Luanda has grown
from 400,000 to almost three million people. Yet the city cannot support its population
and huge slums have grown up on its perimeters. Eighty per cent of Luanda's population
live in densely packed musseques or shantytowns.
Community standpost, Photo: Andrew Kirkwood
 One of these musseques is Sambizanga.
A community of 100,000 people, Sambizanga is a crowded collection of
shelters made from anything available, including cardboard, sticks,
and mud. Some residents can afford corrugated roofing made of sheet
metal. In 1994 there were no sanitation services which meant that the
indoor or outdoor toilets that existed (just over half the households
had any toilet facilities at all) either overflowed on the ground or
were piped to septic systems which overflowed into storm sewers. No
homes had any water piped in and the nearest municipal water source
was a community tap (called a standpost) four or five kilometres
away which often ran dry.
A typical day in Sambizanga begins with the woman of the house purchasing water
from a nearby water vendor. Each day water is trucked in from the River Bengo and
sold to water vendors. These vendors then sell it by the bucket to women who pay
up to a third of their family's income for the water. The water itself is taken directly
from the river and not treated before being sold.
The consequences of poor water and no sewage service can be terrible. Malaria,
diarrhoeal disease (which can be deadly when there is no hospital care), infection
and cholera were rampant throughout Angola. But they were 20 to 25 times worse
in Sambizanga than in the downtown core of Luanda in 1994.
In Angola as a whole, only 38% of the population has access to safe drinking water,
22% has adequate sanitation and the average life expectancy is just 47 years. Early
childhood survival rates are the lowest in the world, with 320 of every thousand
children born dying before their fifth birthdays.
| For Canadian comparisons |
Angola |
Canada |
| life expectancy at birth |
47 years
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77 years
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| infant mortality rate (number of infants who die before age one) |
195 per 100,000
live births
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7 per 100,000
live births
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| population per doctor |
17,750
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455
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| GDP Gross Domestic Product, per person |
$1,100
(Canadian)
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$26,000
(Canadian)
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| Military expenditure as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product |
20% GDP
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2% GDP
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| Average number of years of schooling |
1.5 years
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12 years
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Angola's prosperity and productivity have been critically affected by the war. One
of the richest countries in Africa in terms of natural resources, with diamond mines,
oil reserves and excellent agricultural land, the war has taken it to the point where
annual Gross Domestic Product per person is just $1,100 today. Compare this figure
to $26,000 in Canada.
What on earth would you do?
What do you think is the best solution to Sambizanga's water problems?
Read all options then select your answer.
A)
B)
C)
D)
Continue...
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