Article

Recent research into the role of civil society in DRC suggests that international organisations involved in the Congolese peace process have tended to assume that civil society in the Kivus mirrors its Western counterpart, in which ‘civil society’ represents the needs of the people to the state and keeps the state accountable to the people. Civil society in the Kivus, however, developed quite differently, with today’s distinctive social and bureaucratic structures having been shaped by the colonial administration of earlier years.

Since June 2010, Mukungu1 village in Kalehe, South Kivu, has welcomed 1,150 displaced households fleeing FDLR2 attacks during military operations in the area. A battalion of the national army arrived recently; they have set up checkpoints demanding a fee, do…

The conflict in North Kivu is well documented for the type of pendulum displacement it creates, with families being displaced repeatedly back and forth between locations. In 2009 Concern Worldwide DRC pioneered a new approach in providing not only non-food items (NFIs) – the routine response to displacements – but also seeds and tools and support for primary education using a cash voucher market approach.

In order to ensure that the men, women and children affected by the conflict and displacement in eastern DRC receive the protection and assistance they are entitled to, ICRC endeavours to learn from past experience and analyse patterns of movement more precisely. Its field staff engage with communities in order to gain a better understanding of the threats they are facing, both physical and economic, and devise practical and effective ways of addressing them.

Looking at herself in the mirror, nine-year-old Helena squealed with delight at her reflection, standing upright with just the slightest support of her therapist. A year before, Helena – who lives in Mugunga II IDP camp in Goma – was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. Able only to crawl, Helena had been confined to very specific spaces due to the lava in the IDP camp.

In October 2009, more than 280,000 people were displaced in the two northern DRC districts of Haut-Uélé and Bas-Uélé in Orientale province. The people of this region have suffered escalating attacks from the Lord’s Resistance Army since 2008 but the geographical spread of people in this vast remote region compounded by security constraints makes it difficult for humanitarian organisations to reach them and only a small proportion of IDPs in the Haut-Uélé region receive assistance from humanitarian actors.

For generations the Bamputi Pygmies were nomadic forest-dwellers but in 2004 they too fled the war. Now they live on the outskirts of Goma with little if any support from humanitarian agencies. They have no electricity or running water; straw-covered roofs on makeshift shelters provide poor protection from the frequent rain.

Although maternal deaths have decreased globally by 35% since 1980, maternal deaths in DRC have decreased by only 3% since 1990, the onset of the recent phase of conflict in DRC. Extended conflict has played a significant role in the destruction of a national health-care system already in an advanced state of disrepair, resulting in poor-quality care offered to communities, lack of well-trained health workers and, due to government disinvestment, unmotivated health-care personnel.