USAID/OTI DRC Field Report
September 2005
Program Description
The Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) helps stabilize and revitalize war-torn communities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) by facilitating community-level reintegration of war-affected youths and increasing broad awareness of key transition issues. OTI's objectives are achieved through a program called Synergie d'Education Communautaire et d'Appui à la transition (SE*CA, pronounced "C'est ça!"). The program, implemented by Chemonics, focuses on community reintegration and revitalization and consists of: basic life skills and vocational training (Youth Education and Skills/YES) provided by Master Trainers; small grants to participating communities, providing a chance to put learned skills into practice; and Transition Awareness and Participation (TAP) grants intended to reinforce YES messages through media-focused information campaigns, enhanced access to information by strengthening Radio Okapi (http://www.radiookapi.net), and improved professional capacity of indigenous community radio stations. As the transition progresses, OTI is working with the USAID Mission to hand over program activities in anticipation of a March 2006 exit.
Country Situation
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Democratic Republic of Congo
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Security – The security situation became more precarious after 350 troops from the national army’s 124th battalion in North Kivu defected to join a dissident army general, Laurent Nkunda. (Nkunda helped lead a rebellion that temporarily took over the eastern town of Bukavu in June 2004, causing unrest and riots across the Democratic Republic of Congo.) In Ituri District, attention was focused on Boga, southwest of Bunia, where a newly formed militia group, the Congolese Revolution Movement, was recruiting rebels to destabilize the region. In Aba, near the Sudanese border in Orientale Province, Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army rebels fled into the DRC. Uganda responded by demanding that the DRC disarm and extradite the 350 rebels in two months. In Kisangani, groups of young vigilantes fought with one another and with local police forces in the Mangobo suburb. It is believed that political parties are manipulating the students to create unrest.
The transitional government and elections – The DRC’s transitional government has been tarnished by a nationwide schoolteachers strike over salary increases and pay backlogs from the previous school year. The strike has kept students out of school for September, and there is fear that this situation could permeate other public services, including the army.
The Independent Election Commission (IEC) held a press conference to inform national and international audiences about the difficulties associated with voter registration. The challenges include providing information on elections in a variety of languages, insufficient qualified staff, and insecurity in some regions. In spite of these challenges, the identification and registration of voters continues at a remarkable pace, with approximately 14 million voters registered by the end of September. In Ituri District, one of the most insecure regions in the country, approximately 1.8 million have been registered, showing the Congolese people’s preference for ballots over bullets. The IEC’s progress is sending a strong signal to rural populations and those in the eastern provinces about the seriousness of the upcoming elections, to be held in March and April 2006. Meanwhile, the constitutional referendum has been postponed to Dec. 18.
USAID/OTI Highlights
A. Narrative Summary
All SE*CA staff met in Bunia from Sept. 22 to 24 to conduct a final self-evaluation exercise. The team evaluated different categories of grants and the Youth Education and Skills (YES) training to determine impact, performance and lessons learned. Other issues discussed included the closing out of the Kisangani, Isiro, Buta, Bafwasende, Punia, Kalima, and Kindu field offices by the end of November; the need to speed up implementation for ongoing grants; and preparations for the tentative Ituri Reintegration Program for CONADER (the national organization in charge of the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of ex-combatants).
The SE*CA program inaugurated five projects in September: the rehabilitated general hospital and airport in Bafwasende; the Kolomani peace market in Bunia; and two community radio installations belonging to the Partner Radio Network with Radio Okapi in Bandundu (Bandundu Province) and in Muanda (Bas Congo Province). These two community radio projects will expand Radio Okapi’s FM network, the only neutral national Congolese radio station offered in all four national languages.
The Kisangani and Bunia offices celebrated International Peace Day on Sept. 21. In Bunia, approximately 2,000 young people (many of them ex-combatants) attended an all-day performance of multi-ethnic music, theater and poetry centered on the themes of peace, elections, demobilization and reintegration, and the political transition. During the events, the team presented training certificates to 80 demobilized ex-combatants who had organized their own YES training session and followed all of the YES modules. These ex-combatants wanted the training after seeing others who had been able to reintegrate into their communities after participating in the training. In their speech, the ex-combatants asked for forgiveness from the Ituri population for all their wrongdoing during the country’s conflict. After the ceremony, 200 ex-combatants approached the group to learn how they, too, could participate in the YES training. Similarly, in Kisangani, a few hundred people participated in a marathon for peace, and, later in the day, a few thousand people attended a concert and theater.
The Transition Awareness and Participation (TAP) team has been finalizing the implementation of radio listening clubs and regional community centers and providing sensitization materials to partners in the field, including a video on the political transition process. The team also has focused its efforts on how to formalize the SE*CA network as a nongovernmental organization to continue SE*CA activities after the Office of Transition Initiatives exits in March 2006.
The YES program has entered its last phase as its fifth and final module, “Health and Well-Being,” was taught to Learning Facilitators. Community members will receive the training in October, followed by graduation ceremonies and final evaluation surveys. More than 9,000 people are currently taking part in the YES training.
B. Grant Activity Summary
| Support the reintegration process between war-affected youth and their host communities |
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70 |
$1,770,089 |
| Reinforce awareness to foster community participation on issues key to the transitional process |
1 |
$6,895 |
53 |
$ 985,226 |
| Total |
1 |
$6,895 |
123 |
$2,755,315 |
One grant was cleared during the month to provide YES training to the Pygmies in Bafwasende to help them to better participate in the elections process and also to assist those who want to live in communities rather than in the forest.
C. Indicators of Success
In all areas of YES training (for example Aru, Banalia and Mahagi), SE*CA trainees have become a very useful resource for the Independent Election Commission to assist with voter registration activities. Many have been hired directly by the IEC. The YES module on “Democracy and Governance” and different elections sensitization material were shown to have mobilized populations to help with the registration process and to register to vote. In Aru, members of civil society have written to the head of the IEC to request that independent observers for the upcoming referendum and elections be chosen from SE*CA trainees.
In Kalima (Maniema Province), and Isiro, Bafwasende and Buta (Orientale Province), the population is taking an active role in local political decision-making in the spirit of the YES “Reaffirmation of Values” module. Through SE*CA participants, citizens took action to reject poor governance, corruption and illegal taxes. In Isiro, citizens were able to get the Kinshasa government to replace a local customs official involved in illegal taxation. In Buta, a national political party offered beer and T-shirts to the local population (a favorite tactic for buying votes) and held an inauguration of a health center. The residents took the beer and
T-shirts but refused to show up for the health center inauguration. Party officials were told by the local administrator that “the population is different now. SE*CA has been here, and your old tactics will not work anymore. First, you have to ask the population what it is that they would like to see happen, and then you have to present your party platform and how it responds to their desires.”
SE*CA goes beyond the direct participants. A bystander to a YES focus group interview held in the community of Batikalela near Kisangani was asked about his impressions of the SE*CA program. He replied: “It is such a shame that SE*CA has not built a school in this community. People expected that, after the training, something concrete would come.” He went on: “Nevertheless, SE*CA has managed to do something that is unbelievable here. People are now able to solve their conflicts peacefully within and between different communities and ethnicities; they now work together, and this is a sharp difference from what we had in the past.” Later on, a school was rehabilitated in the community and multiple communities participated.
A newly hired teacher in a vocational training center rehabilitated by SE*CA in Kasenyi, near Bunia, was not a SE*CA participant, but said that “SE*CA has surprised me. I did not know what it was all about until I realized that my classroom was composed of Hemas, Lendus, Biras and other ethnicities that were enemies before.”
D. Program Appraisal
In September, evaluations were conducted in the YES second-cycle communities of Bafwasende, Buta, Isiro, Aru and Mahagi. Community members mentioned that the training has improved relationships, reduced conflict, helped to reduce corruption and harassment by the police and the army, increased voter registration in their areas, improved women’s participation in decision-making, and created an environment where ex-combatants now work and live peacefully with the rest of the community. Unlike the first-cycle communities, these second-cycle towns are not focusing on how they will be compensated for participating in the training. That is because of increased sensitization by the Master Trainers; a strong focus on the training itself; and a strategy of grant selection that permitted almost all communities to be involved in some sort of grant project, whether it was a radio listening club, water point, or school project.
NEXT STEPS/IMMEDIATE PRIORITIES
The program is focusing its current efforts on handover of SE*CA to the USAID Mission and other partners. This will include the registration of the SE*CA Community Integration Committees, radio listening clubs, Learning Facilitators, and regional community centers as a nongovernmental organization titled “SE*CA Network.” SE*CA Network will rapidly disseminate information; assist with sensitization campaigns; and also serve as a partner to those trying to conduct development work. The final negotiations for the Ituri Reintegration Program with CONADER continue. Activities in Kisangani, Isiro, Buta, Bafwasende, Kindu, Kalima, and Punia will wind down as offices close at the end of November.
For further information, please contact:
In Washington, D.C.: Galeeb Kachra, DRC Program Manager, e-mail: gkachra@usaid.gov; telephone: (202) 712-1905
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| Enlarged map of the Democratic Republic of Congo. |
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