Alert works through local partners and reinforces the capacities, visibility and credibility of Congolese organisations. We collaborate with our partners to bridge physical, cultural, ethnic and gender barriers and address underlying causes of conflict and impediments to peacebuilding at the community level. Building on the past and the present, Alert continues to focus its efforts along three programmatic strands of intervention as well as to carrying out analysis, research and advocacy:

Two wars in Eastern Congo have exacerbated existing tensions between ethnic groups as well as creating new conflicts between communities affected by the presence of various militias. The national peace process does not take account of these local conflicts and there is a desperate need for appropriate reconciliation processes at the community level. This was at the core of our work in 2000, when we developed an inter-community dialogue programme between the adversarial ethnic communities in South Kivu.

Much of our work on reconciliation at the community level is carried out with women. We have provided intensive training on gender and conflict resolution techniques, and leadership skills, through our two main partners in South Kivu, the Réseau des Femmes pour un Développement Associatif (a collective of 44 women’s organisations) and the Réseau des Femmes pour la Défense des Droits et la Paix (a local women’s network) and to two other community based women’s organisations, AFIP and AFEC. These partners are increasingly called on to help mediate in local conflicts, for example working with communities divided over the demobilisation and reintegration into society of child soldiers from opposing sides and mediating between antagonistic chiefs.

The partners regularly hold meetings of women from different ethnic groups to talk about conflict issues and how solidarity between them as women rather than focusing on their different ethnicities can work to their advantage. For example, after a series of meetings between women from the opposed Banyamulenge and Babembe communities, they agreed that the issues of sexual violence was one that affected them all. Together they approached the local military and police authorities and got them to agree that a peace committee of women from different ethnic groups would alert the authorities to attacks and participate in meetings around security. Despite a number of inter-ethnic crises in the transition period these networks continued to function and women from different ethnicities continue to work together.

The positive impacts around the women’s dialogue initiatives include:

• The establishment of women’s peace representatives and committees at village level with involvement in local conflict resolution
• Awareness raising on women’s rights and the peace process
• Women taking a proactive role in establishing dialogue between militias, the army and the Interahamwe
• Women beginning to speak out against sexual violence
• Women beginning to denounce cultural and customary practices that discriminate against them

In this way women are beginning to play a much more active role in peacebuilding in their communities. We work with them to help deepen their analysis of the conflict and to think more strategically about the process of building peace.

The DRC is divided in physical, political and psychological dimensions. It is united in the widely-shared aspiration of Congolese people that their country should become a peaceful, cohesive and functioning state but they are at present a long way from realising that ambition. As well as the divisions that stem from different ethnic identities, throughout Congo’s history the centrifugal forces pulling different regions towards their respective neighbours have created a tension between inwards and outwards looking forces. The sheer size of the country and the lack of effective transport infrastructure mean that constructive dialogue and debate between Congolese from different areas of the country is very difficult.

Congolese are divided on a range of fundamental issues relating to the future of the country, including the nature of the state (whether it should be centralised or federal), Congolese identity and citizenship. The divisions arising are played out not just among the political class, but also among Congolese civil society, with the consequence that civil society often plays an ambiguous role in terms of developing mutual confidence among Congolese from different backgrounds. In addition, there is an immense gulf between the capital and the rest of the country, and a perception in the latter that national as well as international policy-making is overly oriented towards Kinshasa. These divisions are compounding the political uncertainties of the 'transition' period in the DRC, and contributing to continuing military tensions and insecurity, particularly in the East.

Alert believes that civil society could and should play a more constructive role in peacebuilding in the DRC, but that it is prevented from doing so in part by the lack of opportunities and spaces for dialogue between those holding different positions and perspectives. We therefore work to stimulate and support dialogue among a cross-section of Congolese civil society – not just with NGOs but with a wide range of groups and associations in different professions and sectors across the country. This takes the form of a series of dialogue and analysis meetings – ‘Espaces d’Échanges’. The main focus of these meetings is fundamental peacebuilding issues, and what their implications are for security, governance and the economy in the post-elections period. These issues include the nature of the state and decentralised governance, Congolese identity and citizenship, security concerns at the national and community levels. The next step will be to formulate plans for shared action.

We are working to develop networks between women from the East and West in order for them to work on a common national agenda for peace, security and the promotion of women’s rights. We are now working with women from civil society, local administration, political parties and religious groups in Eastern Congo to see how we can help them organise a Women’s Caucus which could then more easily link up with the Women’s Caucus in Kinshasa and other women’s organisations based there. We also focus on building the leadership capacity of the eastern Caucus.

Alert has a well established reputation for providing both leadership training and peacebuilding training to women’s organisations in East DRC, both before and during the transition period. As the official transition period draws to a close with elections, we are building on the successful work so far by providing training for women candidates (in both the provincial and local elections) with the aim of increasing women’s representation in provincial and local level decision-making.

The training is carried out in collaboration with the Caucus des Femmes Congolaise du Sud Kivu pour la Paix, a long-term partner of ours in South Kivu. Forty-seven women, both from political parties and independents, from four Eastern provinces participated in the most recent training, just before the Provincial elections. The participants were trained in electoral issues and leadership skills.

The 1999 Lusaka Peace Accord marked a cease-fire in the war in the DRC. The Sun City Inter-Congolese Dialogue in 2002 subsequently attempted to devise a strategy for future political transition. Some women from political parties were involved in the process but civil society was allowed only to observe the proceedings. Prior to the meeting, various women’s organisations from across DRC met with women politicians in Sun City to form a Caucus that would push for women’s involvement in the transition and post-transition process. Alert supported the participation of the civil society representative from South Kivu in the Caucus as well as her participation in the Sun City negotiations.

Alert worked with our main partners in South Kivu, Réseau des Femmes pour un Développement Associatif (RFDA) and the Réseau des Femmes pour la Défence des Droits et la Paix (RFDP) to explain the Peace Accord and the Inter-Congolese Dialogue to women in South Kivu province, so that they understood the implications for them.

RFDP published a booklet on the Inter-Congolese Dialogue that discusses the proceedings of all the meetings and discussions held by the Women’s Caucus at the peace talks in Sun City and the Action Plan devised by the Caucus in 2002. It also includes the recommendations and resolutions produced by the negotiating parties. The booklet was discussed and disseminated widely through meetings, radio broadcasts and seminars.

This will require years of reform to the Congo’s neglected public institutions and a strong civil society that can hold the government to account. But after years of being forced into a state-substitution role, Congolese civil society often reflects many of the same characteristics of the divided society it comes from. For the continued transition to peace, there has to be a concomitant development of the awareness and practice of the watchdog role of civil society over the administration of the state and to protect the rights of all citizens.

Alert currently works with Congolese partners to contribute to a new political culture in the post-transition era which emphasises inclusiveness and accountability. We support watchdog civil society organisations in Kinshasa and in the East, and strengthen their capacity to scrutinise government administration. In Kinshasa we work with GAT (Groupe d’Actions de Citoyens pour la Surveillance de la Transition) who are a network of activists from churches, local NGOs, women’s and youth organisations, and professional organisaitons, who are dedicated to democratisation and the establishment of an Etat de droit. The principle mission of GAT is a successful transition in DRC, acting in the medium and long term as a public action watchdog. Alert is currently supporting GAT to work on an investigative report on the national budget, and to observe the actions of the Electoral Commission in DRC.

In Bukavu, in the East, we work with CEGEC (Centre d’étude et de formation sur la gestion et la prévention des conflits dans la région des Grands Lacs), a research institute focusing on conflict issues in DRC. We currently support CEGEC to publish their regular research bulletin (the ‘Observatoire’) and have recently supported them to carry out a study on the army.

Over the last few years we have supported the Pole Institute, a well-respected research institute based in Goma, North Kivu, to develop a process aimed at giving opportunities for local peace and development actors in eastern Congo to learn from each other, develop clearer analyses and methodologies for their work and break the isolation in which local peace and development activists have been working.

We continue to collaborate with Pole Institute, and participate in their periodic workshops (Bustani ya Mbadiliko, which means Garden of Learning in Swahili) that bring together participants from civil society organisations to exchange experiences by looking at the context, practice and problems of each participant and subjecting them to peer analysis, producing common learning on how to develop more integrated peacebuilding and development strategies.