governance.careinternationalwikis.org

Background

The Democratic Republic of Congo provides a powerful case for the importance of good governance. The country, which in the early days of decolonisation in Africa was cherished across the globe and was hailed as a leader on the continent, has in 50 years turned into the most dangerous place to be, and a home to all manner of ills.

The three decades of mismanagement and depletion of state resources by President Mobutu’s regime has seated a culture of corruption and impunity that led to the total collapse of what was then Zaire. Over Mobutu’s period the DRC’s political and legal frameworks, which were already weak, eroded further with devastating socio-economic consequences, among them the inability of the state to fulfil its essential responsibilities, creating a vacuum in relation to service delivery, state authority and security.

The push for democratisation and pluralism in early 90s in Africa coincided with the fall of Zaire into a totally dysfunctional state. This situation created a disabling environment which generated all sorts of conflicts and illicit exploitation, hence Zaire presented all the required ingredients to discourage and push away any kind of genuine investment or development initiative.

State authority and local governance in DRC

President Mobutu was a ferocious dictator whom some people hold accountable for the ills of the DR, of the Congo today. He was, however, a populist and ingenious political character. Over his three decade long tenure Mobutu mastered and managed the then Zaire political tensions and rivalries in a very sophisticated way. Through complex and well conceptualised political strategies and games Mobutu assured the integrity and stability of the country, and on the other hand managed to maintain a sort of state authority across the country. Clearly, President Mobutu understood very well the challenges of governing and managing a country as big and diverse as the DRC. Already in the 80s Mobutu pushed and opened the country to a form of decentralisation of state management, though he retained the control of all powers and authorities. To maintain state authority, unity, integrity and social cohesion while de-concentrating the management of public affairs, the Mobutu regime used two main strategies: (1) creation a neutral and none tribal affiliated civil service with highest cadres (based on merit) building the elite class, and (2) re-instauration of traditional rule, with customary governance structures being overlapped and amalgamated to state/governance local structures. To counter-balance the power of the (civil servants) elite and the traditional chiefs, Mobutu created and maintained an image of a mythical army that was directly under his command, and acted like gang of thugs to suppress all forms of voices against his regime.

In terms of efficiency, this system seems to have worked well for a period of time, with Mobutu clearly on top of managing tensions and rivalries between the emerging elites by empowering and maintaining direct contact with traditional rulers. Mobutu managed to maintain a grasp and contact with the grassroots and consequently ensured state authority across the country.

In the shadow of the aforementioned system was the church, particularly the Roman Catholic Church. Over the colonial period as much as under Mobutu’s regime and today, the Catholic Church in DRC has been very visible actor, leveraging it wide presence, large congregation, and its economic and social powers. At grassroots level, the Catholic Church is almost an indispensable stakeholder, both in the socio-economic and the political spheres. The social arms of the Catholic Church filled the gap created by the fall of the state in a dysfunctional status in the 90s, especially in relation to basic essential services such as healthcare, education, or safe water. And this accounts, in part, for the enormous influence and power of the Catholic Church in DRC.

Community self-organising governance initiatives

Facing the challenge of unmet basic needs and the widespread insecurity created by a dysfunctional state, opinion-leaders started to mobilise and organise their communities to respond to basic needs and security issues. Often, these community opinion-leaders were and are instigated, sponsored or encouraged by local politicians (concerned about their future in the collapsing DRC), traditional and, to some extent, religious authorities where they couldn’t take a very visible role.

The first set of community self-organising governance initiatives (often in the form of mutuelle**[1]**) were welcomed and seen as an alternative to the dysfunctional state apparatus as the population gained some benefits from them. However, very quickly, most of the formed community self-organising governance initiatives derailed from their original mandate, becoming more and more ethnic-based and vehicles for ascending to political power linked to Kinshasa, and access to wealth through illicit trades and mining.

The increasing sentiments of ethnicity and wealth accumulation driving these community self-organising governance initiatives pushed some quarters to question whether they can qualify as genuine local governance initiatives. In fact, while these groups form around a genuine cause, they often transform into armed groups with the objective of self-defence and protection of their ethnic group. Today, these so called self-defence groups are engaging in the illicit exploitation of natural resources, and in widespread terror and violence to expand their access and control over resources, and thus undermining legitimate and well intentioned local forms of governance.

Most armed groups have two main characteristics: they are often formed along (1) ethnic lines and (2) in relation to rich mineral deposits. To achieve their hidden agenda, they often deliberately target and aim to destroy the traditional rulers’ authority, especially in relation to land ownership.

Traditional rule and local governance in post Mobutu era

As discussed before, DRC’s governance system [AT1] has been decentralised since Mobutu’s time. The DRC’s decentralised administrative governance system is unusual in the way in which traditional and state-institutional governance systems overlap and interact. Traditional rulers have been active and influential political actors since pre-colonial times and remained so until the first liberation war in 1997. The recent cycle of violent conflict and wars, especially in eastern DRC, has seriously dented the authority and power of traditional rulers and their institutions.

Besides the successful completion of two democratic elections in the last decade, the continued mushrooming of armed groups mainly in eastern Congo poses a real challenge to any form of local management of public affairs or effort to strengthen it. In fact, armed groups are threatening the legitimacy and authority of both the central government and traditional rule, hence constituting the major challenge for stabilisation and state re-building in DRC. The recent M23 rebellion provides a vibrant example of this.

Current challenges of local governance in DRC

Following the collapse of Zaire and nearly two decades of violent conflicts that have destroyed lives and fractured the already dilapidated infrastructures, the central government and development partners are banking on local governance processes to restore stability and peace. So far, the only strategy put forward is decentralisation. While decentralisation can offer an appropriate solution to many of the challenges facing the DRC, its conceptualisation needs a re-think. The current DRC model for decentralisation is built on the ruins of Mobutu’s decentralisation system consisting of decentralising the administration while retaining the fiscal and legislative powers. The difference between the current path to decentralisation in DRC and that of the Mobutu administration lies on the values and mechanisms for balancing the powers of the various actors while preserving state authority, integrity, unity, and social cohesion!

The biggest challenges to date in relation to building effective local governance in DRC include:

- “De-ethnicising” the civil service and local governance structures by re-building state authority and credibility as a means to control all forms of violence on the one hand, and assure full equal access to and protection of rights for all citizens through an effective judiciary system, on the other;

- Restoring ethics in the use of state authority by restoring impartially and non-sectarian in the management of public affairs through planning and effectively implementing key reforms including the territorial delimitation and security sector.

- Promoting a redistributive economic model by instituting innovative ways for protecting property rights, redistribution of opportunities for wealth creation;

- Overhauling the justice sector and develop mechanisms for enforcing a new value system in the judiciary system and proceeding as well as legal personal. Justice should underpin and set values for state-citizen relations.

- Bolstering traditional governance by regulating and limiting their authority to specific mandate community dispute settlement and mobilisation towards local development.

To successfully support the DRC on its state rebuilding agenda, one needs to take into account these changes and start by supporting the central government in its efforts to restore its authority and legitimacy across the country, promoting clear rules of the game for the state and citizens, and building relations of trust between them based on the transparent sharing of public information, inclusive governance spaces and protection of the rights of all citizens irrespective of ethnicity or political affiliation.

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[1] Solidarity and interest based organisation.

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[AT1]I assume this is exclusively “administrative” governance, as you referred to de-concentration above.

Mbiz – yes. It is exclusively administrative governance.