DRC

Research Report-Implementation of the Voluntary Principles in the Democratic Republic of Congo-April 2023

From June 2022 to May 2023, Search for Common Ground (Search), with funding from USAID, has been implementing a project entitled “Support for the Government of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) adherence to the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights.” The extractive sector in the Democratic […]

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Final Evaluation-Making Trade Work For Women in East Africa-December 2022

Search for Common Ground (Search), with funding from TradeMark East Africa (TMEA), has implemented the “Making Trade Work for Women” project in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for 24 months (December 2020-December 2022). This project aimed to contribute to the greater inclusion of women in trade as […]

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Rapport du Baromètre de Satisfaction-Mecanismes de gestion des Plaintes aux Frontieres Goma-Rubavu en RDC – Octobre 2022

Cette étude a été conduite dans le cadre du projet transfrontalier RDC – Rwanda : créer des dividendes de la paix pour les femmes et les jeunes par le biais d’un accroissement du commerce transfrontalier et du renforcement de la sécurité alimentaire, executé entre janvier 2022 et novembre […]

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Assessing Conflict, Gender and Protection for Youth Development in North Kivu and Kinshasa, DRC_0

Project Background

Search for Common Ground (Search), in consortium with the International Research and Exchange Board (IREX) and in partnership with the Centre de Recherche sur l’Anti-corruption (CERC) and Africa Youth Mouvement/BIM Sarl, along with financial support from USAID, is implementing the Youth Excel: Our Knowledge Leading Change program in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) from May 2021 to August 2022 in North Kivu and Kinshasa. The program aims to provide support to youth leaders, youthled organizations, and youth-serving organizations to form an issue-based collaborative youth network (ICON) to conduct research on the following question: “How might we strengthen the inclusion of under-represented and marginalized youth in education and workforce development programs?” The purpose of this research is to generate actionable information and recommendations on the integration of inclusive youth workforce development and participation in DRC.

Research Process

Early into implementation, Search facilitated youth-led research consisting of a Conflict Analysis, an
Intersectional Gender Analysis, and a Protection Analysis. The youth-led research approach engaged a total of 12 young researchers from marginalized and underrepresented socio-economic groups to participate in the research. Data collection took place in ten communes of Kinshasa (Selembao, Bumbu, Makala, Kinseso, Ngaba, Kimbaseke, Masina, Maluku, N’sele, and Ndjili) and in North Kivu (Goma, Karisimbi, and Sake). The research took into account insights from relevant past research, including findings captured as part of a literature review and from youth-led research conducted by Search in Eastern DRC in 2019. Such insights complement the findings of this most recent study. Search prepared the initial report in French, so some phrasing and wording in this English translation of the report may have retained a Francophone nature.

The results of this research are significant in contributing to a deeper understanding of conflicts and their impact on youth. The study also sheds light on gender and inclusion dynamics related to the different needs and capacities of women, men, boys, girls and LGBTQI+ people in terms of education, employment, and their overall opportunities for development. The findings help Youth Excel to identify potential risks that could emerge during project implementation. While some of these findings have been highlighted in previous research and studies, the youth researchers felt it was important to highlight them again as they considered such issues have not been adequately addressed, especially when it comes to the main challenges affecting marginalized and vulnerable youth.

Through this research, a total of 202 youth (between the ages of 18 and 35) were consulted through focus groups, including 54% of young men and 46% of young females. Although gender representation was almost equal, the slight overrepresentation of young men is due to the fact that they make up the majority of leaders in youth organizations. More specifically, 14% of young women and 34% of young men were youth leaders from youth organizations (non-marginalized groups), 10% of youth came from dedicated LGBTQI+ groups, and 42% from marginalized groups (homeless youth, sex workers, ethnic minorities, etc.). Key individuals including representatives of the Workforce Development Authority (INPP), the Provincial Ministry of Youth, provincial Members of Parliament (MPs), the Private Sector Federation (FEC), provincial start-ups incubators, and other institutions relevant for youth programs were also consulted during this research through 17 key informant interviews.

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Final Evaluation – Together for Security – December 2021

From September 2019 to November 2021, Search implemented the project “Together For Security – Improving Civilian Protection through Civil Society in DRC,” which put Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) at the center of a strategy to drive constructive engagement and advocacy for security sector accountability.

In the DRC, despite efforts by the authorities to hold accountable perpetrators of abuses among the police and the army, impunity prevails and further exacerbates the population’s mistrust of the security forces. In this context, this project supported local CSOs to develop and deepen relationships and trust with security forces, cooperate with them to work on the issue of accountability, and foster the sustainability of civil protection efforts through shifting norms linked to the roles of civilians and security forces around security issues, and inducing change in security forces’ behavior.

Search provided CSOs with financial support, training, and advocacy and networking opportunities which reinforced their capacities to address human rights and security issues, and to engage with security forces. Concrete evidence of increased trust in the CSOs’ ability to collaborate with the PNC and influence security sector policies and practices related to accountability and human rights validates the relevance of the project’s focus on CSOs as agents of change. Through inclusive and participatory activities, the project brought together members from civil society and the PNC for the first time, resulting in increased mutual understanding. The project particularly improved the relationship between civil society and the PNC around acknowledging, preventing, addressing and denouncing security sector abuses, with some concrete examples of changes in the PNC’s practices. The project contributed to initiating a change of perception on the relevance of security issues for women and the role of women, with concrete examples of women’s empowerment in a conservative local context.

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Final Evaluation – Let’s Beat Ebola Together – April 2021

From February 2020 to February 2021, with support from the Canadian Government, Search for Common Ground implemented the program Let’s Beat Ebola Together in North Kivu, DRC.

In the context of the worst Ebola outbreak ever recorded in the country, the project was designed to help contain the spread of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) epidemic and reduce violent resistance and community distrust of the EVD response in North Kivu. The project especially focused on positively transforming relational capacities among communities themselves and between communities and medical and non-medical state actors around EVD; and improving community communication practices, especially women’s networks to counter rumors and misinformation related to the EVD response.

Let’s Beat Ebola Together contributed to significant improvements in the population’s confidence in the response teams, with a level of trust growing from 27% at the baseline to 70% by the endline. This was accompanied by an improvement of community perceptions of their relationships with both medical and non-medical state actors (+17% point and +20% point respectively by the endline). Communities also reported increased positive engagement of local leaders and increased access to space for dialogue and collaboration with state actors in the response to the EVD. Finally, the project contributed to a significant involvement of young people and women as key actors in the fight against the EVD: the percentage of community members who reported that youth and women are engaged in the fight against the EVD increased by 44% points for youth and 40% points for women.

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Conflict scan and outcome harvesting report – Strengthen social cohesion and the peaceful transformation of conflicts in the territories of Rutshuru and Nyiragongo, in North Kivu province – Aout 2021

Search for Common Ground (Search) is implementing an 8-month intervention in partnership with the World Food Programme (WFP) with cross-cutting conflict transformation activities to ensure that conflict sensitivity and the principle of “Do No Harm” are taken into account in the different components of the project and contribute to the strengthening of peace and social cohesion in Rutshuru and Nyiragongo territories.

A conflict analysis was carried out in February 2021 in the territories of Rutshuru and Nyiragongo, which allowed us to understand the initial situation in order to develop an effective strategy for implementing the project’s activities. The main causes of conflict are related to problems of governance/abuse of power, social discrimination, access to economic resources and opportunities, access to land, impunity, and the devastation of crops by livestock, among others. However, land issues as identified in the conflict analysis were identified as the most recurrent by the majority of respondents to the study, and as having affected social cohesion the most. This conflict pits farmers against herders because of the raiding of livestock that destroys farmers’ fields.

After 7 months of intervention, Search conducted a conflict scan and an evaluation of the results indicators at the agricultural and community value chain level to understand the evolution of the conflict dynamics in relation to the conflict analysis conducted in February 2021 and to understand the main progress and changes made by the project, the impact of the latter within the community as well as the lessons learned.

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