USAID/OTI DROC Fact Sheet
January 2005
OBJECTIVE
The Community Focused Reintegration program supports the re-integration process between war-affected youth and their host communities through the following:
- Imparting Skills. Preparing youth to be able to participate effectively in civil society;
- Supporting Reconciliation. Renewing connections between youth and other members of the community;
- Community Rehabilitation and Recovery. Empowering youth by providing them opportunities to put their new skills to work for the benefit of the community;
- Encouraging Linkages. Fostering connections among and between communities and formal political structures at the local and/or provincial level.
RATIONALE
After five years of war, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) started its transition with the creation of a unified government on June 30, 2003. The different signatory factions of the Lusaka, Sun City and Dar Salaam Accords agreed to the absorption of their troops into the future national military. However, the number of total former combatants from the DRC is beyond the capacity of the future national military. Many former combatants will therefore be directly reinserted into civilian life. Without social and economic support structures available to these former combatants they risk re-mobilization; thus encouraging continued violence, insecurity and instability in the DRC. SE*CA’s Community Focused Reintegration Program, implemented by Chemonics Inc., was created to address this challenge. The program focuses on revitalizing war torn communities’ social, economic, and physical infrastructure. The CFR program is holistic in nature, focusing on the community as a whole versus only combatants. OTI/DRC's staff has worked hand in hand with the national coordinating structure for DDR to develop the national reintegration program, and is serving as a model for the national reintegration program.
METHODS
To address these issues, OTI/DRC’s CFR program includes four programmatic components:
- Youth programming organized around a carefully formulated curriculum that focuses on basic life-skills and processes of reconciliation. The program is expected to train approximately 16,500 war-affected youth and community members from 460 different communities in Province Oriental and Northern Maniema.
- Community reconciliation incorporating many of the elements of the youth-focused programming to promote reconciliation and reestablish systems of community governance.
- Community rehabilitation and recovery applying participatory processes that engage emergent leadership and sharpen practical skills by providing in-kind grants to community driven priority projects. These grants have the possibility of reaching the approximately 8 million citizens throughout the targeted war-affected regions. This territory represents approximately 50% of the most war-affected territory in the country. The initiative operates out of Kisangani, Bunia, and Kindu to allow for coverage of the surrounding villages where there is an expectation of a significant number of returning war-affected people.
- Community linkage development providing opportunities for communities to interact with representatives of formal political entities in the area, especially those entities involved in the transitional national government. This includes political candidates vying for election in the upcoming national elections.
For further information, please contact:
In Washington, D.C.: Bronwyn Bruton, OTI Program Manager, e-mail: bbruton@usaid.gov; telephone: (202) 712-0827
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