Reshaping the reach of the state: the politics of teacher payment reform in the DR Congo

2020 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-43
Author(s):  
Cyril Owen Brandt ◽  
Tom De Herdt
Keyword(s):  
Rural Areas ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic Of Congo ◽  
The Political ◽  
Dr Congo ◽  
Payment Reform ◽  
Bank Account ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative ◽  
Faith Based ◽  
Governance Processes

AbstractWe analyse the politics of the reform of teacher payment modalities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in light of the uneven territorial reach of the DRC state. The reform focused on extending this reach by paying all teachers via a bank account, replacing long-standing shared governance arrangements between state and faith-based organisations with a public-private partnership. By using qualitative and quantitative data, we map the political practices accompanying the implementation of the reform. While the reform itself was officially deemed a success, its intended effects were almost completely offset in rural areas. Moreover, governance of teacher payments was not rationalised but instead became even more complex and spatially differentiated. In sum, the reform has rendered governance processes more opaque and deepened the existing unevenness in the geography of statehood.

scholarly journals ‘My Life is Like a Movie’: Making a Fiction Film as a Route to Knowledge Production on Gang Political Performances in Goma, DR Congo

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-76
Author(s):  
Maarten Hendriks
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic Of Congo ◽  
The Political ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Dr Congo ◽  
Street Life ◽  
Sensory Experiences ◽  
Urban Policing ◽  
The City

‘My life is like a movie’ is a sentence that often surfaced during my fieldwork on gangs engaged in everyday policing in the city of Goma (Democratic Republic of Congo); referring to the martial arts and action movies they like to watch. For this article, I will reflect on how during my ethnographic research I ended up making the fiction film Street Life together with the Congolese filmmaker TD Jack, the gang leader Alino and his group Rich Gang. The paper explores the making of Street Life as a route to knowledge production on the political performances of gangs seeking to carve out a space for themselves in Goma’s urban policing environment. Broadly, two issues are dealt with. Firstly, I analyze how gangs’ everyday political performances are re-enacted and actively mirrored in the film. Secondly, I reflect on how making a fiction with gangs changed my way of dealing with ethnography: in terms of method, my positionality in the field, and ethnographic representation. The paper is also a call for taking the visual – and by extension other senses – more seriously. Not just by writing about sensory experiences, but by incorporating them in our academic work. Sometimes it is better to just let people see it!

Rwanda

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marius Schneider ◽  
Vanessa Ferguson
Keyword(s):  
East Africa ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic Of Congo ◽  
Republic Of Congo

Found in East Africa, Rwanda borders the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Tanzania, Uganda, and Burundi. It is a hilly and fertile landlocked state of 26,338 square kilometres (km). It is one of the smallest countries on the continent but is densely populated with 12.2 million people in 2017. Kigali is the capital of and largest city in Rwanda. It is also Rwanda’s economic, cultural, and transport hub and is found in the centre of the country. Most of the population lives in rural areas. Rwanda has a forty-five-hour working week and the currency used is Rwandan franc (FRW).

scholarly journals Developing strategies to attract, retain and support midwives in rural fragile settings: participatory workshops with health system stakeholders in Ituri Province, Democratic Republic of Congo

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Amuda Baba ◽  
Tim Martineau ◽  
Sally Theobald ◽  
Paluku Sabuni ◽  
Marie Muziakukwa Nobabo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Rural Areas ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Health Workers ◽  
Democratic Republic Of Congo ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Republic Of Congo ◽  
Birth Attendants ◽  
Rural Settings ◽  
Attraction And Retention ◽  
Maternal And Newborn

Abstract Background Midwifery plays a vital role in the quality of care as well as rapid and sustained reductions in maternal and newborn mortality. Like most other sub-Saharan African countries, the Democratic Republic of Congo experiences shortages and inequitable distribution of health workers, particularly in rural areas and fragile settings. The aim of this study was to identify strategies that can help to attract, support and retain midwives in the fragile and rural Ituri province. Methods A qualitative participatory research design, through a workshop methodology, was used in this study. Participatory workshops were held in Bunia, Aru and Adja health districts in Ituri Province with provincial, district and facility managers, midwives and nurses, and non-governmental organisation, church medical coordination and nursing school representatives. In these workshops, data on the availability and distribution of midwives as well as their experiences in providing midwifery services were presented and discussed, followed by the development of strategies to attract, retain and support midwives. The workshops were digitally recorded, transcribed and thematically analysed using NVivo 12. Results The study revealed that participants acknowledged that most of the policies in relation to rural attraction and retention of health workers were not implemented, whilst a few have been partially put in place. Key strategies embedded in the realities of the rural fragile Ituri province were proposed, including organising midwifery training in nursing schools located in rural areas; recruiting students from rural areas; encouraging communities to use health services and thus generate more income; lobbying non-governmental organisations and churches to support the improvement of midwives’ living and working conditions; and integrating traditional birth attendants in health facilities. Contextual solutions were proposed to overcome challenges. Conclusion Midwives are key skilled birth attendants managing maternal and newborn healthcare in rural areas. Ensuring their availability through effective attraction and retention strategies is essential in fragile and rural settings. This participatory approach through a workshop methodology that engages different stakeholders and builds on available data, can promote learning health systems and develop pragmatic strategies for the attraction and retention of health workers in fragile remote and rural settings.

scholarly journals Navigating social spaces: armed mobilization and circular return in Eastern DR Congo

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Koen Vlassenroot ◽  
Emery Mudinga ◽  
Josaphat Musamba
Keyword(s):  
Social Mobility ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic Of Congo ◽  
Armed Groups ◽  
Social Spaces ◽  
Dr Congo ◽  
Republic Of Congo ◽  
Refugee Studies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Pendular State

Abstract This article discusses the social mobility of combatants and introduces the notion of circular return to explain their pendular state of movement between civilian and combatant life. This phenomenon is widely observed in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where Congolese youth have been going in and out of armed groups for several decades now. While the notion of circular return has its origins in migration and refugee studies, we show that it also serves as a useful lens to understand the navigation capacity between different social spaces of combatants and to describe and understand processes of incessant armed mobilization and demobilization. In conceptualizing these processes as forms of circular return, we want to move beyond the remobilization discourse, which is too often connected to an assumed failure of disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration processes. We argue that this discourse tends to ignore combatants’ agency and larger processes of socialization and social rupture as part of armed mobilization.

scholarly journals Soldiers Without an Army? Patronage Networks and Cohesion in the Armed Forces of the DR Congo

2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 626-646 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Verweijen
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Social Identification ◽  
The Political ◽  
Dr Congo ◽  
Norm Enforcement ◽  
Internal Conflicts ◽  
Republic Of The Congo ◽  
Service Conditions ◽  
Defense Reform

This article analyzes the effects of patronage networks on cohesion in the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It shows that while patronage networks provide support to individual military personnel, they undermine both peer and commander–subordinate bonding. They promote unequal service conditions and statuses and link these to extra-unit and extra-military forms of social identification, which are further reinforced by soldiers’ living and generating revenue among civilians. Furthermore, they impair meritocracy and frustrate the extent to which commanders live up to their subordinates’ expectations. As they fuel internal conflicts, often around revenue generation, and foster bad service conditions and distrust toward the political and military leadership, patronage networks also undermine institutional cohesion. The article concludes that cohesion formation in the FARDC follows different patterns than in well-institutionalized and well-resourced militaries. Given that cohesion impacts combat performance and norm enforcement, these findings are relevant for defense reform efforts and military cooperation.

A quantitative comparison of frugivorous tephritids (Diptera: Tephritidae) in tropical forests and rural areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo

2011 ◽  
Vol 101 (5) ◽  
pp. 591-597 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Virgilio ◽  
T. Backeljau ◽  
R. Emeleme ◽  
J.L. Juakali ◽  
M. De Meyer
Keyword(s):  
Tropical Forests ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic Of Congo ◽  
Current Knowledge ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Republic Of Congo ◽  
Rural Villages ◽  
Congo River ◽  
Disturbed Habitats

AbstractMost of the current knowledge about African tephritids originates from studies performed in agricultural areas, while information about their distribution in pristine or moderately disturbed environments is extremely scarce. This study aims at (i) describing levels of spatial variability of frugivorous tephritids in tropical forests and small rural villages of the Congo River basin and (ii) verifying if human-mediated activities, such as small-scale agriculture and trade, can affect their distribution patterns. Four locations were sampled along a 250 km stretch of the Congo River. At each location, pristine and disturbed habitats (i.e. tropical forests and small rural villages, respectively) were sampled, with three replicate sites in each combination of habitat and location. Sampling with modified McPhail traps baited with four different attractants yielded 819 tephritid specimens of 29 species from seven genera (Bactrocera, Carpophthoromyia, Ceratitis, Dacus, Celidodacus, Perilampsis, Trirhithrum). The three most abundant species sampled (Dacus bivittatus, D. punctatifrons, Bactrocera invadens) showed significant variations in abundance across locations and sites and accounted for 98.29% of the overall dissimilarity between habitats. Assemblages differed among locations and sites while they showed significant differences between pristine and disturbed habitats in two out of the four locations. This study shows that frugivorous tephritids in central Congo have remarkably patchy distributions with differences among locations and sites representing the main source of variability. Our data show that, in rural villages of central Democratic Republic of Congo, human activities, such as small-scale agriculture and local commerce, are not always sufficient to promote differences between the tephritid assemblages of villages and those of the surrounding tropical forests.

scholarly journals Relaciones internacionales y justicia transicional: memoria, jurisdicción universal y el caso Ruanda/RD Congo

2017 ◽  
pp. 15
Author(s):  
Jordi Palou-Loverdos
Keyword(s):  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Critical Reflection ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic Of Congo ◽  
Universal Jurisdiction ◽  
Dr Congo ◽  
Judicial Process ◽  
Human Right ◽  
The Past ◽  
Twentieth Anniversary

<p>In the twentieth anniversary of the Srebrenica and Kibeho massacres, both executed under the presence of UN blue helmets, its timely to approach judicial and non-judicial mechanisms of transitional justice been used to face human right abuses of the past. Human tragedies of Rwanda and the democratic Republic of Congo are still devastating despite of developed initiatives about truth, justice and reparation. dialogue processes and universal jurisdiction initiatives inspired by international civil society depict a window of hope. National and international impacts of the Rwanda-DR Congo case judicial process, as the effects of the cancellation of universal jurisdiction in Spain, after ten years of open judicial inquiry, are presented to invite to a critical reflection.</p><p><strong>Received</strong>: 25 July 2015<br /><strong>Accepted</strong>: 30 November 2015<br /><strong>Published online</strong>: 11 December 2017</p>

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