Development Workshop has been working in Angola since 1981 and was for many years the only NGO in the country. DW was invited by the national government’ to assist in developing policies and programs for self-help housing. Subsequently, DW participated with local government and community based partners in the first integrated squatter-upgrading program in the musseque (informal settlement) of Luanda. DW has adopted a strategy of working closely with local government and community organisations. DW's assistance has been instrumental in building the capacity of Angolan civil society partners during the conflict years after 1991. At the Istanbul Habitat Conference, in 1996, DW’s Sambizanga project was recognised as one of the “International Best Practices” in urban upgrading. In 2009 DW's Luanda Urban Poverty Programme won the Southern African Drivers for Change Award and in 2011 recieved UN Habitat's Dubai International Best Practices Award. DW's current program in Angola has parallel focuses; one is on peri-urban communities where infrastructure and other basic services are virtually non-existent and the other is on supporting the rehabilitation of social infrastructure in the central highlands. With over three decades of research and practice in Angola, DW has been able to offer lessons for replication and influence policy in sectors of urban and rural poverty reduction and on land tenure rights and socio-economic exclusion of the poor in the informal sector market place.