Executive Summary
For more than a decade, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has
struggled with one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. Yet,
improbably, that situation has improved markedly over the past few
years. Seventy percent of the electorate has voted in the first
democratic contest for president in four decades; violence in the east
has eased, largely due to the presence of the UN peacekeeping force,
MONUC; and humanitarian response has improved even as internally
displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees begin to return home. No longer
is the DRC an intractable quagmire: it has arrived at a moment of hope
that must be seized.
The international community must now redouble its efforts to help those
still in need and further stabilize the country, to build on the
improvements made and protect its already substantial investment. The
priority is action—this is no time for efforts to lag or attention to
wander. The DRC is vital for strategic as well as humanitarian reasons,
with staggering potential as well as tremendous suffering. Its vast
natural resources could be a motor for regional development and
stability, but instead have fueled regional confl ict following the
collapse of the Mobutu regime in the 1990s. Four million people have
died as a result, and 1.6 million remain displaced inside the DRC
today. Despite the signs of hope brought by the elections, fighting and
displacement will continue during the year to come, even as a new
government takes power and long-term development programs take root.
The most pressing humanitarian priority is increasing security for
civilians by reforming the Congolese armed forces, expanding MONUC, and
implementing the embargo on arms and natural resources. Pockets of
violence, displacement, and need persist throughout the east,
internally displaced people live just beyond the reach of assistance,
and attempts by the displaced to return home are thwarted by fi ghting.
The FARDC—the new Congolese national army—is the most serious threat.
Despite a process of integration designed to create a professional
defense force, the FARDC’s ill-trained and underpaid troops, a
collection of former government and rebel forces, are abandoned by
their commanders, forcing them to live off the backs of the population
and opening the door to brutal abuse—particularly rape.
Civilians also come under attack from local militias and rebel groups
seeking control over natural resources or fighting against neighboring
governments. Joint operations between the FARDC and MONUC to subdue
these groups have displaced hundreds of thousands since January 2006,
with little strategic gain. MONUC has come under pressure from the
U.S., its largest contributor, to pursue such a military solution, but
neither MONUC nor the FARDC has the capacity to implement it.
In addition, the UN Security Council recently extended an embargo on
the flow of weapons and the natural resources that pay for them to and
from the DRC. MONUC again does not have the capacity to monitor
and enforce this embargo, despite a specifi c mandate to do so, due to
a lack of troops, equipment, and intelligence capabilities. The embargo
is crucial to choking off the source of conflict in the DRC, but has
never been respected. Rwanda and Uganda have a particular role to play
in this regard, and the ongoing flow of arms from their territories
into eastern DRC demonstrates their failure.
In the ever-widening areas where peace makes assistance possible, more
humanitarian funding and continued coordination between agencies remain
critical. Help is needed in areas of crisis and displacement, where
lives are in danger, as well as in areas of resolution and return,
where lives are being rebuilt. In North Kivu and Ituri, displacement
has increased over the pastseveral months, straining the capacity of
donors, UN agencies, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to
respond. A new initiative, the Rapid Response Mechanism, has performed
well by establishing NGO teams that can respond quickly to new
displacement crises with shelter and household kits, food, and water.
In terms of return and resettlement, however, the response so far has
been slow. Given the scale of the problem, donors and agencies need to
identify the areas of return that they will assist first, focusing on
those that will draw the largest number of displaced or that are most
at risk of renewed fighting. They will need to meet basic humanitarian
needs fi rst, then move swiftly to ensure the ongoing safety of the
population as well as access to markets, clean water, education, and
health care.
Humanitarian response for both displacement and return is dependent on
funding—and funding for the crisis in the DRC is completely inadequate.
If the objective is minimum standards of assistance for all who need
it, then donors are not providing the required resources. The problem
is compounded by the fact that humanitarian action in the DRC is
expensive: distances are long, infrastructure non-existent, and
corruption endemic. The United Nations laid out the most comprehensive
picture to date of humanitarian needs and proposed responses for the
DRC in its 2006 Action Plan, yet donors have not taken the appeal
seriously, supplying only one-third of the requested $680 million.
Donors have begun contributing more to longterm development programs,
but the shift is creating a gap in short-term assistance that could
save lives now. The European Union, in particular, has cut off support
for humanitarian assistance before its development funding has become
available.
The quality of humanitarian response also depends on coordination. The
DRC is a pilot country for the Cluster Leadership Approach and the
Pooled Fund, a pair of intertwined initiatives that have improved
coordination but may be having a negative impact on funding. The
Cluster Leadership Approach has brought together UN agencies and
international NGOs (although not local representatives) to set
priorities in sectors such as protection or water and sanitation. The
Pooled Fund was established to ensure that unfunded projects designed
to meet priority needs could indeed be implemented, and a few European
donors (in particular the United Kingdom) have contributed
substantially. The Fund uses Cluster recommendations in awarding
grants, creating a powerful incentive for NGOs to participate, thus
improving coordination. However, the UN Development Programme (UNDP),
in its role as Fund administrator, has not been able to disburse funds
in a timely manner. There is also a concern that the Fund favors UN
agencies, with their high overhead costs, at the expense of more
efficient (but also more limited) NGO projects.
Improvements in security, assistance, funding, and coordination are
humanitarian imperatives for the DRC. The hope fostered by improvements
over the past few years, capped by the recent elections, must drive the
Congolese people, their government, and the international community—
the United States and other leading international actors, regional
actors, donor agencies and appropriators, the United Nations, NGOs, and
the media—to redouble efforts to stop the killing and displacement of
civilians, meet the basic needs of those affected by the conflict, and
help people get home and rebuild.
Refugees International therefore
recommends that:
Improving
security
- The DRC
request that the United States and other donors invest in the FARDC by
increasing salaries, extending and improving training, and supporting
the prosecution of soldiers and their superiors as necessary for
abuses, especially rape.
- The new
Congolese government request, and the UN Security Council authorize, a
twelvemonth expansion of MONUC, adding four additional battalions to
protect civilians and facilitate humanitarian response; deter armed
groups while encouraging their disarmament and demobilization; support
FARDC reform; and enforce the embargo on weapons and natural resources.
- Rwanda
and Uganda begin enforcing the embargo on weapons and natural
resources, with the U.S. and the United Kingdom, as supporters of the
two countries, assisting them as well as holding them accountable
(through the UN Security Council if necessary) for violations.
Improving
assistance
- The new
president of the DRC appoint a high-level coordinator for humanitarian
affairs; the new prime minister promote the most technically qualifi ed
staff to head relevant ministries at both the national and provincial
levels; and the new national assembly establish a committee to monitor
humanitarian needs and response.
- The DRC
government, donors, UN agencies, and NGOs work together to strengthen
the Rapid Response Mechanism and improve IDP camp management and
assistance to survivors of rape. In addition, donors must resolve
current food shortages by increasing contributions to the World Food
Programme.
- DRC
government agencies, donors, UN agencies, and NGOs accelerate efforts
within the Early Recovery Cluster to develop and implement a
comprehensive plan to encourage and facilitate the return and
resettlement of IDPs, refugees, and ex-combatants.
Improving
funding
- Donors
increase their contributions for humanitarian response in the DRC,
including security and peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance, and
coordination.
- Donors,
the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in the DRC, and the World Bank work to
manage the shift from humanitarian to development funding, ensuring
that implementing agencies do not have to suspend projects and lay off
experienced staff during the transition.
Improving
coordination
- The
Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and UNDP
complete the rollout of the Early Recovery Cluster and link it fi rmly
to the Protection Cluster so that IDP and refugee return is voluntary
and safe as well as rapid.
- Under
the leadership of the UN Humanitarian Coordinator, OCHA increase local
involvement in the Cluster groups, and UNDP improve its coordinating
capacity as MONUC withdraws.
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