SWAPO’s exile institutions gradually extended beyond military activity. Settlements in Zambia and Angola provided education, health care and defence for a population that eventually numbered between forty and fifty thousand. A school opened in the camps in 1973; by 1984, thousands of pupils were receiving education in Kwanza Sul and Zambia, while additional students attended a secondary school at Loudima in Congo and schools in Cuba and Eastern Europe.

The SWAPO Women’s Council was founded in exile in 1969–70, with Libertine Amathila as its first secretary. Although women had long participated in protest and political activism, the arrival of large numbers of young women in the mid-1970s strengthened demands for women’s rights. At the 1976 Enlarged Central Committee Meeting, five women were elected to SWAPO’s governing body, the movement added combating sexism to its aims and women were permitted to join PLAN, with some attaining leadership positions.

The council also addressed practical needs within the exile community. It provided literacy and other basic education, particularly for women without formal schooling, and played a leading role in delivering health care in the camps. Vocational education was offered at S​​umble in Angola, while the United Nations Institute for Namibia, founded in Lusaka in 1976, and scholarships to universities abroad expanded post-secondary training.

International assistance underpinned much of this work. In 1979, aid channelled through the United Nations alone amounted to US $15 million, while solidarity organisations around the world campaigned against apartheid and helped distribute information and political literature. The passage also records the vulnerability of exile communities: the Cassinga camp was attacked in 1978, and more than six hundred exiles were killed in the bombing raid.