Program Development and Coordination in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Background information

The majority of the projects supported by Mission 21 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are located in the province of Kwango. It lies on the border with Angola and is around 500 kilometers from the capital Kinshasa. The remote villages in Kwango are difficult to reach as the state hardly invests in the construction and maintenance of roads here.

Mission 21's cooperation program in the DR Congo aims to guarantee basic health care for part of the population in the Kwango region and to contribute to the sustainable development of rural regions through agroecology. The program is committed to providing schooling for children from poor backgrounds and to improving opportunities on the job market through vocational training programs. Gender equality is also an important component of the cooperation program. Targeted projects and the development of the program as a whole promote this. A lack of transparency in governance and weak identification with the nation state are very present in the Democratic Republic of Congo. There is often no well-functioning administration and corruption is widespread. It is therefore not surprising that there is little trust in state institutions. Against this backdrop, it is important to strengthen the CEK in matters of good governance.

Project goals

Workshops and further training in the areas of financial management, anti-corruption, impact-oriented project management, conflict sensitivity and the prevention of sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment (PSEAH) are intended to strengthen the effectiveness and efficiency of the projects and reduce the risk of corruption. An important aspect is the promotion of a gender mainstreaming approach at all levels of the projects in order to increase gender equality. The training courses are led annually by local experts and supervised by the program manager.

Target group

The target groups are primarily the project managers and employees. Through a so-called training of trainers, the knowledge is passed on to the broad network of partner organizations and thus indirectly reaches the population.

Activities

• Implementation of workshops and further training in the most important areas of "good governance" by external experts
• Ensuring an efficient flow of information between Mission 21 and the partner organizations and their projects

Project progress

In 2023, the project trained 16 employees of the partner organizations in Congo in the areas of finance and accounting, project management and PSEAH. This took the form of a workshop to which other partner organizations of the KoGe cooperation community were also invited. This enabled the project managers and partner organizations to exchange ideas and network with other experts.

A significant success is the concept of preventing sexual harassment within a legal framework in order to implement this systematically in the projects. Further training courses were held in April 2024.