Policy Lessons in Conflict Prevention and Peace-Building in DRC: Key Findings

1. Key Policy LessonsJoint Evaluation of Conflict Prevention and Peace-Building in DRC, 2002-2010 Presentation in Oslo, Day 1 of Consultations ‘What Have We learnt From the Application Phase?’ 16 February 2011

2. A Classical Joint Evaluation Framework • Steering Committee including Belgium (Chair), Canada, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, UNDP, UNFPA, UNHCHR, Unicef, UNIFEM, United Kingdom. • Team: 15 persons deployed over 12 months (October 2009 – September 2010). Four deliverables. • Scope: area of highest sustained conflict defined as North and South Kivu, District of Ituri, and all interventions to resolve the conflicts between 2003 and 2010. • Four Consultative Groups in Kinshasa, Bunia, Goma, Bukavu, consulted in January 2011 on Final Draft. Channel Research

3. ToR: What are the policies and how are they defined? What is their performance? What is the role of government? Relevance Effectiveness • To what extent did the CPPB policies/ strategies and interventions provide an accurate and relevant response to the conflict and to the harm the conflict has caused and still causes? To what extent did the interventions achieve their objectives? What are the outcomes of the CPPB interventions? Efficiency Impact • How do the interventions compare to other options, that donors did not choose but were aware of, aiming at achieving the same goals? What is the impact of the CPPB policies and strategies on the selected themes? And are outcomes sustainable? To what extent do the donors coordinate their CPPB efforts amongst themselves or with local institutions and to what extent is their CPPB approach coherent? Channel Research

4. Principal Peace and Conflict Drivers: • Weakness of the State: limited presence, no regulatory role • Land Based Conflicts: clash between formal justice, current conditions and customary law • Fragmentation of armed groups and slow DDR: local and informal tactics undermine SSR and DDR • Parallel structures for mining: governance neglected and prevalence of artisanal mining and informal trade Channel Research

5. Physical Map of Conflict: remote, scattered, difficult to know, “décalé”. Channel Research

6. Policies: Unable to Address Clearly the Conflicts • A significant lack of transparency: many actors and levels of decision making, unwillingness to report & to learn. • Compartmentalisation: in spite of sustained funding (US$1.5 billion per year, a large part for the east) and good correlation to peace agreements and elections, too many institutional conduits. • An excessive number of policy frameworks: too much information sharing, not enough policy setting. Remoteness from the ground, lack of analytical simplicity – especially as regards conflict analysis. Channel Research

7. Five Themes of Intervention: Headline Conclusions • Humanitarian Aid: 40% of total funding, plus with child rights and assistance re SGBV = 70% of projects - explained by some as mitigating conflict. Clearly weakens the state, and provides no conflict sensitivity analysis. • Justice: Increasingly coordinated and effective but unable to communicate with stakeholders and hand over. Issues of land ownership not addressed frontally. • DDR and SSR: The largest projects and most funding, but unequal to the scale of the issues. Most effective but isolated and not enough focused on civilian aspects. • Mining:Recognised by everyone as a central issue but not addressed until 2007 and only timidly (5 projects). Key issue is not criminality but informality, many current initiatives are making formal governance even more remote. • Capacity building: not recognised as a key option for the creation of coalitions, under-conceptualised (no objectives, indicators). Tends to be reduced to training workshops. Channel Research

8. The Deeper Issue: A Chasm Separates the State from the Donors Local Partner Perceptions Donor Perceptions A XXIst Century Malaise • Decisions are made in capitals and Embassies and neglect all forms of consultation or grievance feedback mechanisms • Donors complain of corruption but do not give the example of transparent funding • There is no funding available for state capacity. Civil society and contracts are incomparably wealthier • Lack of capacity is pervasive • The state is so corrupt as to become an optical illusion • NGOs represent the most convenient and field based set of actors for funding. • The project based approach remains the only option in such a fragile state • A very real policy vacuum as regards the role of the state: • Operational instruments fill the gap left by strategy • Institutional specialisations define the ends • Inability to define success because there is no vision of the end state. • An experience that characterises the post-cold war world: Balkans, Rwanda, Afghanistan, etc… The default is to work with what we have. + Channel Research

9. A Change of Posture is Required • CPPB requires a particular approach. This begins with simplification. Starting from conflict analysis as a planning, monitoring and evaluation tool. • Coordination should be based on a clear type of effects sought in relation to drivers of conflict. • Conflict sensitivity and development of local capacity should be universal and start from the ground up, particularly in remote areas. Channel Research

10. A Change of Posture • What management systems? • Be creative in the selection of partners, take risks (STAREC, China, Church, mining companies?). • Resist the preference for multiple levels of contracting • Create a culture of trust & transparency Base performance on conflict analysis Cluster around specific drivers Premised on local coalitions Refine or strengthen certain types of Interventions: mining, humanitarian aid, justice, capacity building, SSR Channel Research