Waging Peace:  Democratic Republic of the Congo

Advancing Human Rights and Democratic Participation

In spring 2007, The Carter Center began working on various programs to help consolidate progress toward democracy following the country's first democratic elections in 40 years. The task of building and sustaining democratic institutions has proven even more difficult than organizing the 2006 election, which was considered one of the world's most complex logistical challenges. In 2011, the DRC once again held a national election that presented similar challenges in a country that is the size of Western Europe.

Civil society organizations are a driving force of society. They are critical partners and actors in the public policy sphere, and as such, they are essential in the protection of fundamental freedoms and the development of democratic governance. They act as independent watchdogs and advocates of human rights and are important service providers, often responding to the needs of communities at the grassroots level. In collaboration with these organizations and a wide range of other actors in the DRC, The Carter Center designed a series of initiatives to strengthen the justice sector, to create transparency and accountability in the mining sector, and to bolster the capacity of civil society organizations.

Human Rights House
The Carter Center launched — and sustains — a civil society support center in Kinshasa called the Human Rights House (HRH), with the support of the governments of Netherlands, Sweden, the United States, and Belgium. The HRH provides quality training and technical support to its 154 NGO partners in a range of subjects including, but not limited to: project design, financial management and fundraising, human rights violations investigation and reporting, conflict resolution and negotiation, and advocacy.

Reflecting on one such training, an NGO staff member noted: "This training, above all, made me discover the importance of information in activities in the fight against violence against women. Good information allows us to place the facts that we analyze in their context. As such, we can better face the challenges of our work. The implementation of this training will without a doubt have an impact on the quality of our intervention on the ground." The Human Rights House has also served as a dialogue forum and conference center, attracting members of Congolese civil society, Congolese government officials, members of the international donor community, and the media to discuss issues surrounding international human rights treaties, the role of an independent media, and the role of the International Criminal Court. HRH has an IT center and library where civil society leaders and students can access numerous human rights publications and training modules and engage in networking with other human rights communities in DRC and other parts of Africa.

Mining Sector Reform
Utilizing funding from the government of Belgium, the Center worked in collaboration with Columbia Law School's Human Rights Clinic to complete a review of 60 mining contracts in the DRC at the invitation of the Congolese government and in collaboration with Congolese civil society organizations. A November 2007 report (PDF) detailed the problems found during the review and included the Carter Center's recommendations for next steps, including renegotiation of contracts according to international standards, to the international community, World Bank, mining companies, and Congolese government. The DRC is one of the most mineral-rich nations on earth, yet its citizens have seen little benefit from these resources due to corruption and faulty contracts between mining companies and the government.

The Carter Center launched the second phase of the project to advance reform in the mining sector in December 2009, once again with funding from the Belgian government, This included mining contract negotiations, training NGOs to conduct Human Rights Impact Assessments in mining communities, and bringing technical expertise to multistakeholder (civil society, government, and mining companies) meetings convened for policy dialogue and joint problem-solving in mining practice. This second phase built a sustainable means for Congolese and international civil society to access and supplement the scattered bulk of extractive industry information through the CongoMines website, launched in October 2011 (http://www.congomines.org/). CongoMines is the initiative's primary transparency tool and a first in DRC transparency efforts, currently featuring an information portal and an interactive map that provides a clear view of the industrial mining sector in Katanga province, complemented with legal, financial, and social mapping layers.

First Report: The Carter Center Review of DRC Mining Contracts - Update and Recommendations (PDF) >

Democratic Republic of the Congo: The Carter Center Expresses New Concerns in Response to Announced Mining Contract Renegotiations >

Carter Center Conducts Human Rights Training for Congolese Police Officers >

Police and Judges Training Initiative
The Carter Center's police and judges training initiative improves the ability of these actors to carry out their jobs in accordance with Congolese and international human rights law. The Center offers training in both human rights legal frameworks as well as professional skills needed for the daily application of human rights standards, including the investigation and prosecution of crimes of sexual and gender-based violence, the rights of minors, and the right to due process for all detainees.

The Carter Center developed a set of training materials and curriculum and conducted workshops for 310 police officers and 50 magistrates from 2007- 2010. These trainings had an immediate impact on police and judges in terms of both their knowledge of human rights law as well as its application in their daily duties. One police officer from Kinshasa remarked: "I [recently] caught a man in his 40s at a bar fondling a minor. Before this training that scene seemed ordinary to me. But after the training, I have become sensitive to child protection, and I understood [he] was committing a serious crime. I immediately arrested him, and he is in detention now as I speak." Additionally, the commandant of police in the Tchangu district of Kinshasa pointed out that a child detention facility, in which minors had been detained for prolonged periods and occasionally been mixed with adult prisoners, had been closed after the Carter Center's training.  As a result of the training, the commandant established a policy that requires all detained minors to immediately be taken to the local courts for arraignment.

Read more about the Carter Center's police training initiative >