Unlocking DRC’s potential from a crisis to solutions country

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is a country of stark contrasts. On the one hand, it boasts a tropical forest, biodiversity and mineral wealth. At the same time, it is also one of the most protracted and neglected humanitarian crises in the world, mostly driven by conflicts in the Eastern part of the country and is home to the highest number of food insecure people in the world, as well as hosting the largest number of internally displaced population in Africa, 6.3 million people. 

Bruno Lemarquis, the Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General/Resident /Humanitarian Coordinator in the DRC spoke to Member State representatives on 19 June about the particularities of his role, including a ‘triple hat’ – connecting the development, peace and humanitarian work – within the specific context of a heterogenous country the size of all Western Europe. In a joint presentation with the Minister of State and Planning in the DRC, Ms. Judith Suminwa Tuluka, Mr. Lemarquis highlighted the importance of boosting sustainable development to tackle the root causes of instability, with localized approaches and a crucial role for local authorities’ leadership and partnerships. This is an essential step in the country’s path toward sustainable development amid the ongoing and gradual withdrawal of the UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO). 

“The DRC is a country where conflicts and development deficits have deep-rooted structural causes – which I like to call gordian knots, such as the exploitation of natural resources, land issues and illicit financial flows. For the UN, it means multiple agendas – peace, development, human rights, humanitarian assistance,” he said. 

Representatives from the Government of the DRC agreed that the ‘tripled-hatted’ UN leadership capacity of Mr. Lemarquis played a vital role in connecting the dots between Government partners, UN agencies, donors and civil society for effective collaboration across development, humanitarian, and peace operations. 

One example of this was the improved coordination in the formulation and implementation of the current roadmap to advance the Sustainable Development Goals, jointly agreed with and led by the Government, the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework. As the Minister of State and Planning, Ms. Suminwa Tuluka put it, this revamped coordination process ensured its close alignment with national development priorities and ‘opened the way to more adaptive and collective results’ through MONUSCO’s critical transition period, with a phased withdrawal approach. 

According to the Resident Coordinator, lessons learned from the Mission’s departure from the Kasai provinces in 2021 were critical to ensuring a smooth and coordinated withdrawal from the southeastern province of Tanganyika in June 2022. “In Tanganyika, we put a lot of emphasis on advance planning, the central role of the provincial government, the involvement of the local UN country team and civil society”, Mr. Lemarquis noted.

This included the creation of a provincial integrated transition team, and the formulation of a provincial UN sustainable development framework that includes peacebuilding priorities, and the development of a budgeted transition plan – the first of its kind in the DRC, for which funding is now urgently sought to ensure a smooth transition.
 

As lessons from the Tanganyika transition are now being applied to the ongoing transition process in the three remaining provinces of Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu, participants in the briefing, including representatives from the European Union and Norway reiterated the critical importance of advanced planning on the ground, as well as the close coordination of the UN, Member States and government ministries at a global level.  

H.E. Ambassador Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, the Permanent Representative of the DRC to the UN in New York, agreed on the importance of adopting tailored, provincial-based responses to the diverse challenges of the country. He also outlined the importance of ensuring that development initiatives become self-sustaining, including the ambitious local development programmes taking place across the country’s 145 territories. The two-year, US$ 1.6 billion public investment programme, which is supported by the Ministry of Planning, and is partially implemented through the UN, is helping communities to define their own priorities and needs, including an emphasis on job creation, improving roads and schools, and establishing new health centers.  

Moving forward, the Resident Coordinator reiterated his team’s commitment to working closely with the Congolese authorities and partners, including through the provision of integrated support and policy advice, and to bringing the right actors around the right table - not only to ensure a smooth transition process but to help unlock the enormous potential for the DRC to forge own its path from a forgotten ‘crisis’ country, to a global ‘solutions’ one. 
 

To learn more about the work of the UN in the DRC visit DRCongo.un.org