Opposition leader Félix Tshisekedi was declared the winner
of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) presidential elections held in late
December 2018 and was inaugurated in January 2019. The transfer of power
from former President Joseph Kabila, who ruled for eighteen years and had
delayed elections multiple times, marked the first peaceful transfer of power
in the DRC’s history. However, election results have since been questioned.
Tshisekedi inherited a number of crises across the
DRC, including an Ebola outbreak in the east and ongoing violence across
the country, particularly in the Ituri, Kasai, and Kivu regions.
More than one hundred armed groups, such as the Ugandan Allied
Democratic Forces, are believed to operate in the eastern region of the DRC.
Despite the presence of more than sixteen thousand UN
peacekeepers, these groups continue to terrorize communities and control weakly
governed areas. Millions of civilians have been forced to flee the fighting:
the United Nations estimates there are currently 4.5 million internally
displaced persons in the DRC, and more than 800,000 DRC refugees in
other nations.
Background
The origins of the current violence in the DRC are
in the massive refugee crisis and spillover from the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
After Hutu génocidaires fled to eastern DRC and formed armed groups,
opposing Tutsi and other opportunistic rebel groups arose. The Congolese
government was unable to control and defeat the various armed groups, some of
which directly threatened populations in neighboring countries, and war
eventually broke out.
From 1998 to 2003, government forces supported by Angola,
Namibia, and Zimbabwe fought rebels backed by Rwanda and Uganda in what is
known as the Second Congo War. While estimates vary greatly, the death
toll may have reached over three million people. Despite a peace deal in
2002 and the formation of a transitional government in 2003, ongoing
violence perpetrated by armed groups against civilians in the eastern region
has continued, largely due to poor governance, weak institutions, and rampant
corruption.
One of the most prominent rebel groups to emerge in the
aftermath of the war was known as the March 23 Movement (M23), made
up primarily of ethnic Tutsis who were allegedly supported by the Rwandan
government. M23 rebelled against the Congolese government for supposedly
reneging on a peace deal signed in 2009. The UN Security Council authorized an
offensive brigade under the mandate of the UN Organization Stabilization
Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO) to support the DRC state army in its fight
against M23. The Congolese army and UN peacekeepers defeated the group in 2013,
but other armed groups have since emerged.
The country’s massive resource wealth—estimated to
include $24 trillion of untapped mineral resources—also fuels violence. The
mineral trade provides financial means for groups to operate and buy arms.
The United States passed legislation in 2010 to reduce the purchase of “conflict
minerals” and prevent the funding of armed militias, but complex
supply chains in the DRC mineral sale business have made it difficult for companies
that purchase resources from secondhand buyers to obtain certification. As
a result, multinational companies have stopped buying minerals from the
DRC altogether, putting many miners out of work and even driving some to join
armed groups to gain a source of livelihood.
My Proposal Plan for
DRC
The 15-year plan I propose for DRC comprises seven pillars
of development, with the private sector driving growth and international and
diaspora expertise tapped as needed. In its first phase, the program must aim
at advancing human capital, through education, health, and nutrition; creating
opportunity and a level playing field for all, including Congolese women, who
suffer not only legal discrimination, but one of the world’s highest rates of
sexual and gender-based violence; promoting peace, security, rule of law, and
democracy by restructuring the army and police and building strong democratic
institutions and transparent practices; mobilizing domestic resources through
transparent, effective tax collection and anticorruption measures; and
supporting a responsible domestic private sector backed by functioning public
administration and the rule of law. These initial pillars would lay the
foundation for establishing strong institutions that President Barack Obama has
often emphasized in his African policy as opposed to dictatorial strongmen who
are to blame for the current state of affairs.
The second phase of the plan should endeavor to create
opportunities for the people by taking on large-scale, labor-intensive
infrastructure projects to create jobs as well as desperately needed enablers
of trade and growth; boosting and accelerating local industrialization to
refine and process minerals and mechanize farming, livestock and fisheries;
promoting sustainable forest management; and supporting service sectors
including tourism; and finally identifying and tapping domestic and regional
market synergies.
What will this plan cost? I estimate about $800 billion over
15 years, in domestic resources, bilateral and multilateral aid, and foreign
direct investment. It will also require a wholesale rethinking of development
strategy and governance, with transparency a top priority. Executed wisely, it
could turn one of the world’s poorest economies into a driver of African
growth.
Economies most often succeed or fail based on the caliber
and integrity of political leaders and governance structures. Good governance,
rule of law, transparent management of natural resources, and honest, efficient
tax collection should allow the state to develop an annual budget of at least
$72 billion, lifting GDP per capita to $15,000 in a decade and a half.
Proverbial wisdom, repeated recently only in irony, says
that “what’s impossible isn’t Congolese.” Bitter experience has taught too many
of my compatriots quite the opposite. But we know from recent experience that
great progress is possible, even in the poorest, most fragile corners of the
world—progress that conveys prosperity and security not only for individual
economies but, in this era of fast-moving global threats, for us all.
Refining and implementing this new Marshall Plan is where
the country’s transformational work should begin to create conditions for a
sustainable development beyond the usual cosmetic reforms. This plan can be a
big step toward stabilizing and promoting development of one of the most
important countries in Africa
Finally, the current #DRC crisis is catastrophic for Africa.
Weak governance and the prevalence of many armed groups have subjected
Congolese civilians to widespread rape and sexual violence, massive human
rights violations, and extreme poverty.
The solution is political one, and it must be resolved
peacefully through dialogue but what is now desperately need is not deployment
of more troops to the region, but increased capacity for diplomatic work, and
emergency humanitarian relief assistance for people who were forced to flee.
It is a call for the Africa Union and International
Community to renew their efforts to address the source of the conflict. Continued
violence in the DRC may eventually spill over into Burundi, Rwanda, and Uganda.
#My15YearPlan4DRC #PeaceandStability
#SDG16 #SustainableCommunities #PeaceBuilding #SDGS #MakeCongoGreatAgain
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