| The LUPP Building Influence, Strengthening Governance Programme, of which LURE is one of the sub components, plans to influence the development of urban policies by acting as a facilitator between participatory municipal level activities and national government policy makers. It will stimulate interest, debate and action to tackle urban poverty at National as well as Provincial and Municipal levels. This will involve ongoing technical support to accompany the National Urban Forum to meet the challenges of MDG11. LUPP proposes to build on the fledging partnership with the Luanda Provincial Government. By working with Municipal Administrations and the GPL (Luanda Provincial Government) to establish and strengthen participatory approaches to planning and consultation with citizen’s LUPP will enable Municipal and Provincial institutions to exercise more inclusive, participatory, accountable, rights-based and transparent governance. In the context of the envisaged first national and, in due course, local elections since the end of the war, this is an extremely timely and important initiative for post-conflict Angola. LUPP’s advocacy and policy influencing strategy requires building active communities and local level institutions in order to participate in Municipal level Governance and advocate for change at National levels. Through several rounds of discussions, DFID has clarified that they wish their limited funds to be used for higher level policy influencing and governance. It has therefore been decided by LUPP partners to maintain the programme strategy but request DFID funding for municipal governance and national level policy influencing. LUPP will seek parallel project funding for the strategic component of building active citizenship. LUPP partners affirm that their strategy can not de-link itself from building community level institutions and networks. The individual partner agencies have already successfully mobilized some funds for these purposes for the focus municipalities. The DFID supported component of the proposed LUPP programme however will continue to promote community participation in municipal planning through municipal development forums and promote the construction of a national level network on urban poverty linked with the National Urban Forum with the aim of advocating at the level of Ministries and Provincial Governments. |