In the context of immediate human needs in post-war rural Angola, the promotion and protection of human
rights remains an idealistic framework, and is one which current NGO practice is often poorly equipped to address.
Most NGOs, CARE included, have been implementing emergency projects for much of the last decade, primarily with
displaced populations. Hundreds of thousands of displaced people are now returning to their areas of origin in rural
areas; many for the first time in decades. It is here, in resettling rural communities, that initial discussions about
discrimination, exclusion, and human rights must occur. For CARE, it is vital that those discussions occur within the
context of core project business, and that staff receive the necessary training to enable them to effect those
discussions.
To start moving to a rights-based approach, CARE began undertaking the Transition Programming Initiative
(TPI) in 2002. The TPI is an ongoing program of support to staff, designed to build their capacities through training,
workshops, and field assessments to: 1) Increase community participation in targeting project beneficiaries,
especially more vulnerable groups; 2) Increase participation in project planning and implementation, including
community-led priority setting for rehabilitation and development actions; 3) Initiate community-led discussion and
analysis of matters that may be a local source of conflict.
These activities, facilitated by an international consultant with experience in post-war Sierra Leone, take place within
an operating context of long-term social dislocation. Consequently, little is known about the social and political
structures that govern life in rural Angola. To fill the gap, CARE has conducted a survey of rural social and political
structures in some of the more remote rural areas of the Planalto. The results of the survey will allow CARE to plan
and implement project activities in cooperation with and support of the re-emergent structures in rural areas. The
initiative has also undertaken an assessment on land management (access, tenure and transfer) and has identified
possible interventions to ensure that rural families enjoy their full rights particularly with regard to the new land law.
