Smallholder farmers at Mamani 6 km from Kikwit, the capital of Kwilu province. Many across the country are learning new farming techniques through practical application. Credit: Badylon Kawanda Bakiman/IPS

By Badylon Kawanda Bakiman
KIKWIT, DR Congo, Jan 2 2019 (IPS)

It was almost four years ago in 2015 that members of Farmer’s Frame of Idiofa (FFI), a farmers group in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), produced a mere eight tonnes of sweet potatoes on two hectares of land. But the main reason for the low yield had not necessarily been a climate-related one, but an educational one.
“Thanks to the knowledge about agricultural techniques learnt from Farmer Field School, FFI has produced 30 tonnes of sweet potato in 2017 from a field of two hectares,” says Albert Kukotisa, chairman of FFI, from Kikwit, Kwilu province in southwest DRC.

FFI’s group of farmers are just some of those across the country who are learning new farming techniques thanks to the Farmer Field School (FFS) – an initiative by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO).

The field schools are not necessarily a new concept. According to a survey they were first introduced in 1989 in Indonesia where schools were developed to hope farmers deal with pesticide-induced problems.

And while they are also not new to the DRC, they are proving an effective way to educate and assist farmers.

Lazard Milambo, an FAO expert says that the new element to the FFS is that farmers are introduced to “new ideas with guided exercises without imposition and stimulating discussions by farmers.” He says the involvement of farmers themselves in the training process is also new.

With the FFS, however, farmers are not just told about new techniques and research, they are able to implement it also. Each week, a group of 20 to 25 farmers meet in local field and under the guidance of a trained facilitator they implement new farming techniques. Facilitators have various backgrounds and can include extension workers, employees from NGOs or previously-trained farmers.

“In groups of five they observe and compare two plots over the course of an entire cropping season. One plot follows local conventional methods while the other is used to experiment with what could be considered best practices. The plot of land belongs to a member of the group,” Patience Kutanga, an expert, agricultural engineer and one of the trained facilitators, explains.

Didier Kulenfuka, an agriculture expert adds that “small farmers experiment with and observe key elements of the agro-ecosystem by measuring plant development, taking samples of insects, weeds and diseased plants, and constructing simple cage experiments or comparing characteristics of different soils. At the end of the weekly meeting they present their findings in a plenary session, followed by discussion and planning for the coming weeks.”

According to a World Bank report, “DRC farmers are particularly poor and isolated, therefore vulnerable to climate impacts and other external shocks…”
In a country with 80 million hectares of arable land, “there are more than 50 millions of farmers in the country with land. Most of them are smallholders,” Milambo says.

And according to the same World Bank report the government is, however, committed to a green revolution, pledging to reduce rural poverty by 2020 through agricultural production systems. The government allocated 8 percent of its 2016 budget to agriculture.

But Kikwit, the capital and largest city of Kwilu province, and home to some 186,000 people, has only one university with an agronomic faculty.

Farmers and smallholders instead rely on the advice and knowledge of agricultural extension officers. And now, as Milambo points out, about two million smallholder farmers are working across the country with some 20,000 FFSs.

Françoise Kangala, a 47-year-old farmer of Kongo Central (formerly Bas-Congo) province explains that he learned a lot from the course, including how to identify the best field for planting his crop and how to choose top seeds. His increased knowledge showed in the increased harvest.

“So, my family has harvested 20 tonnes of maniocs [Cassava], Obama variety for a field of one hectare. In 2014 it wasn’t the case. The same land produced only 7 tonnes. Observations about results between old practices and the new is among the innovations of the approach.’’

For John Masamba, a smallholder farmer from Goma, North Kivu province, east of DRC, it’s necessary to popularise this system around the DRC “because it’s a school without walls.” He said he appreciated learning through practice.

“Together, farmers swap experiences. With the knowledge from FFS and using resilient seeds, I have produced [in 2018] 19 tonnes of maize from one a field of one hectare, compared to 7 tonnes in 2016,’’ he says.

Going forward this increased production by smallholder farmers will be crucial to the country’s food security. Smallholding farming contributes — around 60 percent — to the country’s food security, according to Milambo.

Displaced women at the Simba Mosala Site in Kikwit, Democratic Republic of Congo. Credit: Badylon Kawanda Bakiman/IPS

By Badylon Kawanda Bakiman
KIKWIT, DR Congo, Mar 4 2018 (IPS)

The numbers are hard to fathom. Nearly two million people driven from their homes in 2017 alone. The worst cholera epidemic of the past 15 years, with over 55,000 cases and more than 1,000 deaths. Countless others killed, maimed or sexually assaulted.

The human costs of the ongoing crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo are borne disproportionately by women and children, whose homes have been pillaged and burned, who are not in school and thus vulnerable to soldier recruitment, and who have now been left with almost nothing.“These are not the same conflicts we have been seeing for the last twenty years." --Jan Egeland

Charlotte Ukuba, 60, fled to Site Etat at Kikwit, Kwilu Province in the southwest of DR Congo.

‘’I’m living now outside with my eight children,” Ukuba told IPS. “My husband was killed last year by the Kamwina Nsapu’s violence in Kasai province. When I came here, I was living first in a church with other displaced persons. But last week, a pastor chased us away. I have no money and need clothes for my children.”

Her eldest daughter is suffering from malaria. ‘’There are no drugs for this girl. I’m calling for help,” she added.

Violence broke out in Kasai in August 2016 following the uprising of local militia in Kasai Central. The crisis has been characterized by repeated clashes between militias and local security forces, which have subsequently generated inter-community conflicts.

Another displaced woman named Rose Thimbangula died at the age of 47 on Feb. 14 in Nzinda commune in Kikwit. The cause of death was tuberculosis complicated by fistula due to sexual violence. She had no money for medicine.

Dressed in a long black dress, Marie Ntumbala, 37, sleeps on the floor of a small room in Mweka, Kasai province. She is originally from a village called Tutando, 150 kilometers from Tshikapa, but was forced out by conflict. Ntumbala was fortunate enough to be taken in by a local family. But she says she is still living on the edge.

“When I’m ill, I can’t go to the hospital because I’m penniless. The Congolese government must help all the displaced persons in our country,” she said.

DR Congo has some 4.5 million internally displaced people, the largest number in Africa. Elections scheduled for 2017 were postponed to the end of this year, as political instability and clashes between soldiers and militias continues to escalate. An estimated 120 armed groups are operating in eastern DR Congo alone.

Red Cross workers provide a hot meal to IDPs at the Kanzombi Site in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Credit: Badylon Kawanda Bakiman/IPS

Humanitarian actors launched the largest ever funding appeal for the country this year, asking for 1.68 billion dollars to assist 10.5 million people. Only half of the 812.5 million dollars appealed for in 2017 was funded.

Brigitte Kishimana is 28 years old and six months pregnant. She lives at the Moni Site in Kalemi, Tanganyika province in the southeast. ‘’I need prenatal care,” she said. “Several other pregnant women at the sites need it too. If not, their lives will be in danger. Last year, four displaced women died during pregnancy or childbirth,” she told IPS.

Georgette Bahire, a 45-year-old farmer in Sud-Kivu province, fled Lulumba village on June 29, 2017. Fighting between government soldiers and the Mai-Mai, an armed group, drove her from her land. She was taken in by a family in the city of Kibanga.

“Humanitarian workers helped us in 2017 with food and some drugs. But the needs are still great,” she said.

Since the beginning of this year, armed conflicts have continued to plague the country, particularly in the areas of Rutshuru, Masisi, Walikale, South-Lubero and Beni. The gradual withdrawal of humanitarian aid workers from these areas has amplified the vulnerability of people affected by the humanitarian crisis, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said in a September 2017 report.

Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council, at an IDP camp in DRC. Credit: Norwegian Refugee Council

“The crisis in DR Congo has deteriorated exponentially over the last two years,” Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council, told IPS in an interview. “These are not the same conflicts we have been seeing for the last twenty years. Regions that were normally peaceful and stable areas of the country such as the Grand Kasai region and Tanganyika have now become hotbeds of unrest, with intercommunal violence displacing hundreds of thousands.”

“The fighting in the Kivus and Ituri is pushing the conflict in DR Congo closer and closer to a regional humanitarian crisis as tens of thousands of people have had to flee their homes into neighbouring countries like Uganda, Burundi, Tanzania and Zambia. A fresh appeal is necessary because while humanitarian needs are exploding and assistance is not able to meet the pace of needs.”

Egeland called on the international community to prioritize the humanitarian crisis in DR Congo and step up their efforts to help the 13.1 million people in need of assistance.

“If not,” he warned, “there will be fatal consequences for the country and possibly for the region.”

IOM is working to provide durable solutions for 5,973 IDP households in the North-Kivu province.

‘’Currently, IOM is helping 77 displaced women suffering from fistulas caused by sexual violence,” IOM Programme Officer Jean-Claude Bashirahishize told IPS. “In 2017, IOM received 205 cases of sexual violence in 12 sites,” he said, adding that cultural taboos made it difficult for women to talk about what had happened to them.

IOM helps victims of sexual violence get economic assistance, but also to train in livelihood activities so they can become self-sufficient.

‘’Insecurity is the greatest barrier to IOM accessing areas where armed groups are fighting government military forces,” Bashirahishize added.

Patrice Mushidinima, a civil society leader at Bukavu, the county seat of Sud-Kivu province, confirmed this, telling IPS, “Sud-Kivu province has 33 distinct armed groups operating in the area.”

In October 2017, the Congolese government and FAO helped more than 20,000 internally displaced persons, of whom about whom 70 percent were women and children at Kikwit, Kwilu province. But the situation is growing increasingly dire.

‘’Farmers who fled due to conflict have missed three consecutive planting seasons. This has left people with almost nothing to eat. Food assistance is failing to fill the gap. Only 400,000 out of the 3.2 million severely food insecure people in Kasai received assistance in December. More than 750,000 are still displaced,” FAO, UNICEF and the World Food Programme (WFP) warned in a statement.

‘’IDPs have rights that need to be respected by the government and other authorities in the country. The Congolese Constitution claims that human life is sacred,” Valentin Mbalanda, a human rights activist in DR Congo, told IPS.

The European Commission, United Nations, and Dutch government will co-host a pledging conference in April. Jan Egeland said that international donors must give the same attention and priority to DR Congo that they do comparable crises around the globe.

“That means they must put their muscle and weight behind a successful donor conference and fulfill any pledges made. Donors must also look at needs on the ground and not just the bottom line. The DR Congo crisis of 2018 is not what is was in 2000 or 2005,” he said.

“Lastly, the international community must acknowledge the consequence of doing nothing. The stakes in DR Congo are high if inaction is the route we choose. There could be mass loss of life and humanitarian neglect could destabilize the entire region. This is a crisis of conscience that the world cannot afford to ignore.”

Excerpt:

Rose Fungulana, a 53-year-old farmer, fears that if DRC President Joseph Kabila is allowed to serve a third term of office, there will be a rebellion that will increase the risk of sexual assault against women. Courtesy: Badylon Kawanda Bakiman

By Badylon Kawanda Bakiman
KIKWIT, DR Congo, Jul 2 2014 (IPS)

Proposals to review the Democratic Republic of Congo’s constitution to permit President Joseph Kabila to seek a third term of office, if accepted, will only plunge the Congolese further into poverty and insecurity, experts warn.

“More than 60 percent of Congolese live on less than one dollar a day. Our compatriots are struggling to access our natural resources. DRC risks [looting] of stores as it was in 1991 in Mobutu [Sese Seko’s reign],” Raymond Kitako, a civil society leader in DRC, told IPS. Mobutu ruled the country for 31 years in a reign that was synonymous with corruption. In 1991 people looted stores and shops as the economy plunged.

Mobutu was overthrown in 1997 by current President Joseph Kabila’s father, Laurent Kabila, who was assassinated in 2001. Joseph Kabila replaced his father as head of state and was later elected president in 2006 and 2011.

“If this decision is applied, it places the country at risk for a serious political crisis,” Kitako added.

Article 70 of the constitution specifies that the presidential mandate of five years is only renewable once. And article 220 of the constitution specifically states there should be no review of the constitution when it comes to the presidential mandate. However, the ruling coalition Presidential Majority was said to be discussing the possibility of reviewing the limits placed on the term of office.

“If the presidential [term] is reviewed, the DRC will register a step backwards of 60 years. We don’t like it,” said Vital Kamerhe, Joseph Kabila’s main political opponent and chairman of the opposition Union for Congolese Nation, during a meeting with journalists.

Raymond Kitako, a civil society leader in DRC, said if DRC President Joseph Kabila is allowed to serve a third term of office, it would result in a serious political crisis. Courtesy: Badylon Kawanda Bakiman

For Kamerhe, “Burundi’s example where members of parliament refused to review the constitution [after being asked to do so] by President Pierre Nkurunziza must be a lesson to the presidential majority in DRC.”

Ernest Malonda, a member of the opposition Union for Democracy and Social Progress, told IPS that if the president was allowed to seek a third term of office, “DRC will lose its national unity. Congolese will not circulate freely. Bandits called ‘Kuluna’ will become very numerous and the people will suffer.”

“Where have you seen a country at war receive economic investors?” asked Germaine Tangolo, an economist.

Many here remember the rebellion of 1997 where more than six million Congolese died when Laurent Kabila overthrew Mobutu. And they don’t want to relive it.

“The war will start and as a consequence so will sexual violence and gender-based violence as people look for natural resources,” feared Rose Fungulana, a 53-year-old farmer.

She said that in the 1997 war, her 23-year-old sister was raped by Mobutu’s soldiers in eastern DRC.

A 2013 report published by Ministry of Gender, however, shows sexual violence remains very high in the country, as “29,354 cases of sexual violence and gender-based violence were registered in seven provinces of DRC from 2011 to 2013.”

Fungulana worries that women will be even more at risk should there be a rebellion against the president serving a third term of office.

Jean Claude Katenda, president of the African Association for Human Rights in DRC, told IPS that the “people will contest the results and people will die [protesting against it]. It’s dangerous for the democracy. Corruption will circulate.”

However, Luzanga  Shamandevu, spokesman of presidential majority, denied this would happen and said that they would accept the outcome if the constitution was reviewed.

However, some are willing to take their chances with a changed constitution.

“I don’t understand why political opposition and Presidential Majority are divided! Let us see what the country will become if the Congolese constitution is reviewed,” Simon Kapalay, a teacher at Kikwit, in the southwest of DRC, told IPS.

Widespread poverty in DRC means many households cannot afford school fees for their children. Credit: Einberger/argum/EED/IPS

By Badylon Kawanda Bakiman
KIKWIT, DR Congo, Jun 27 2012 (IPS)

The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo is enjoying success with the remedial education centres set up to give children from underprivileged backgrounds a free education and vocational training.

Evodie Masenga is one of the 20,000 children at remedial education centres – known as CRS – who passed the final exam that marks the end of six years of primary school in DRC. The centres provide a special, accelerated programme for children between the ages of 9 and 11 who have had to leave school for one reason or another.

“CRS educators undergo about three months of training to learn the special methods applied at the centres,” said Mutshio Lumbwe, another specialist in non-formal education.

“It’s my third year here,” said 11-year-old Masenga, standing outside the Lukolela 1 CRS, one of several in the southwestern DRC city of Kikwit. “I can do math and read fluently. I’ve also gained knowledge of trades which could help me later in life.”

Widespread poverty in DRC means many households cannot afford school fees for their children. According to a 2008 United Nations Development Programme report, 70 percent of the population lives on less than one dollar a day.

Fabien Elameji Tshibanda is an unemployed commercial agent from Mbuji-Mayi, a city in the centre of the country, who often turns to farming to make ends meet.

“It’s been difficult for me to put my eight children through school,” he told IPS.

“My two children graduated from the CRS four years ago, and I didn’t have to pay a cent,” said Tshibanda. “The girl is now improving her skills as a tailor, working in a shop; the boy wants to become a carpenter.”

“The percentage of children not in school in DRC is 83.5 percent,” Robert Makonda, a specialist in non-formal education, told IPS. “There is also an increase in the number of children out of school after quitting due to failure or non-payment of school fees.”

It is one of the lowest enrolment rates in the world. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund(UNICEF), the East African country of Somalia, which has also been torn apart by decades of civil war, has an enrolment rate of 20 percent.

“The roughly 20,000 children who have just passed TENAFEP (the primary school exam) this year come from 840 CRSs around the country, compared to 12,470 children registered in the 700 centres that we had last year,” said Albert Ketho, director general for non-formal education at the Ministry for Social Affairs.

But Ketho said that material and financial assistance from partners like UNESCO, UNICEF and USAID are too limited to meet the centres’ needs.

“With 15 million dollars, we could educate 900,000 children every year. But the roughly 300,000 dollars which these partners make available is not nearly enough to support the CRS system in Congo…”

But, he added, the Congolese government itself has allocated only 125,000 dollars – less than 0.01 percent of its 2011 budget – to these educational institutions.

“These centres are simply upholding the right to education that all children should enjoy. This is in line with several international instruments for the protection of the child that have been ratified by DRC,” said Joseph Lukubu, coordinator of the Network for International Training in Human Rights for Sustainable Development in Africa, an NGO based in Kikwit.

But Arsène Ngondo, a member of Congolese civil society, wants many more CRSs to be opened in rural areas, saying “Why are there more remedial education centres in urban centres, while there are thousands of children in rural areas who don’t enjoy the same advantages?”

Farmers in the Democratic Republic of Congo are embracing a new variety of cassava which, in combination with improved agricultural techniques, easily outperforms yields from other popular types of this important crop.

Farmers in the Democratic Republic of Congo are embracing a new variety of cassava. Credit: Credit: André Thiel/Flickr

Cassava is a staple food in many parts of DRC, and farmers disappointed with harvests of the popular F100 variety, which has proved vulnerable to a plant disease called mosaic, have turned to a newer strain with great success.

“We produced 58 tonnes of TME 419 cassava from a two hectare field in 2011,” said 27-year-old Romain Twarita. “That’s a yield of 29 tonnes per hectare, compared to the 10 or 12 tonnes per hectare of F100 that we harvested in 2010.”

Twarita, the coordinator of Action Jeunes Pour le Développement de Nkara (AJDN), an association of 22 young farmers at Nkara, 90 kilometres from Kikwit, the capital of the southwestern DRC province of Bandundu, says the 2011 crop brought in more than 25,000 dollars for AJDN, against 10,000 dollars the year before, and just 3,000 dollars in 2009, the year the association was established.

He said AJDN has also adopted “binage”, a new method of hoeing which maximises the benefits of irrigation –”worth two waterings”, as Twarita put it. Binage calls for the surface of the soil to be broken up, to allow more rain to soak into it. The young farmers also use compost and manure to enrich the soil with organic and mineral matter.

“The big problem is a shortage of farm implements, and the lack of understanding from landowners who ask so much money for a plot – 40 or 50 dollars for half a hectare, depending on location,” he told IPS.

“The cassava is bought from farms here by traders, then sent to the capital, Kinshasa, where it sells fast,” said Jacques Mitini, president of the provincial network of small farmers’ organisations in Bandundu, which includes 255 smallholder associations, nearly a third of these representing young farmers between the ages of 21 and 33.

In the west of DRC, in Bas-Congo province, the Comité de Développement de Kakongo (CDK) is planting trees to create windbreaks and maintain soil moisture, boosting production of other crops on a three-hectare plot.

“We are using intercropping, that’s why there are these wind-breaks of moringa trees which also fertilise the earth without us needing to use chemical fertilisers. Irrigation is also important,” said Espérance Nzuzi, president of Force Paysanne du Bas-Congo, a network of 264 smallholder farmers associations, including 87 created by youth.

“The 84 tonnes of TME 419 cassava harvested last year earned us 39,960 dollars, compared to just 6,160 dollars from 14 tonnes of F100 in 2010,” said Nzuzi.

On two hectares on the outskirts of Kinshasa, the Congolese capital, another youth association, Jeunes Dynamiques de Malulku (JDM), has also found success with the adoption of new techniques.

“We’ve only been practicing binage since we started this venture in 2010. We produced 15 tonnes of TME 419 from a single hectare that year, but in 2011 we harvested 28 tonnes from a hectare and a half, applying a little bit of chemical fertiliser,” said Anne Mburabata, 32, president of the association.

“Before we started popularising TME 419 cassava, we tested it carefully,” said Didier Mboma, who heads the technical innovation service at the Impresa Servizi Coordinati (ISCO), an Italian NGO which is making free cuttings of the new cassava variety available to farmers.

“Since the tests in 2008, we have planted 3,000 cuttings, and we have harvested 30,000.”

Mboma said that young farmers are strongly establishing themselves as productive farmers, while contributing to the country’s food security.

“Young farmers must move towards professionalisation, and take control of the entire value chain from production, to processing, to marketing,” said Dr. Christophe Arthur Mampuya, from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fishing and Livestock.

“The TME 419 variety is a high-yielding one. It’s also among the best varieties being promoted,” he said.

Mampuya said emerging young farmers must also plant woodlots, as adoption of the new cassava variety is scaled up.

“TME 419 is more popular in the west of DRC than in the east, but step by step, the variety could spread across the country,” said Paluku Mivimba, president of the National Confederation of Agricultural Producers of Congo.

Governments and civil society organisations in Central Africa are slowly developing strategies in response to global warming. But specialists say the steps being taken seem hesitant in the face of emerging realities.

Forest elephants in the Mbeli River, Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park, Congo. Central African countries are developing strategies against climate change. Credit: Thomas Breuer/Wikicommons

For some time now, smallholder farmers in many parts of Africa, but particularly in the Congo basin, have noted with alarm a slump in farm output that can be linked to climate change.

“Before 2010, we would harvest, 1,200 kilogrammes per hectare of Kasaï 1 variety of maize, for example, or 1,000 kilos of the jl24 variety of groundnut. But beginning in 2010, yields per hectare fell to 600 kg for groundnuts and 700 kg for maize,” says a worried Jean-Baptiste Mbwengele, president of a production and sales cooperative which groups forty smallholder organisations in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Mbwengele explains that the drop in production has been caused by disruptions to the agricultural calendar, due to both unusually heavy or prolonged rainy periods which make fungal, bacterial and viral plant diseases worse, and to drought – which he linked to the clearing of forests.

In partnership with the United Nations Development Programme, the DRC has initiated PANA-ASA – the Programme of Action for Adaptation and Food Security – designed to counter the threat that climate change poses to agricultural output and food security.

“This project will facilitate access to genetic material (improved seed) better adapted to the anticipated climatic conditions as well as the adoption of better practices for water management and soil fertility,” explains Jean Ndembo, the national coordinator for PANA-ASA.

Reducing deforestation is also a necessity, both to bolster the resilience of local farmers and to contribute to global mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions in the form of carbon stored in healthy forests.

For several years, the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo has been carrying out reforestation programmes as part of its Agricultural and Rural Sector Rehabilitation Support Programme, known as PARSAR. Supported by the African Development Bank, PARSAR has reforested some 600 hectares in the western provinces of Bandundu and Bas-Congo, planting 2.2 million trees, mostly acacias, according to the programme’s coordinator, Albert Luzayadio.

Smaller areas have also been rehabilitated by PARSAR in the east, in Orientale Province, where 44 hectares have been planted in Kisangani; and in the southeastern province of Katanga, 25 hectares in Pweto have been reforested.

The programme works in concert with civil society. Célestin Awiwi Mimbu, the national coordinator of non-governmental organisation Action de Reboisement au Congo, says his organisation has planted more than 900,000 trees across the Democratic Republic of Congo, mainly fast-growing eucalyptus and acacias – the latter tree’s leaves offer the additional benefit of fertilising the soil.

Mimbu explains that besides acacia and eucalyptus, umbrella trees – Maesopsis eminiii, a tall, fast- growing species widely found across tropical Africa – and various fruit trees have been planted at several sites in the southwestern DRC province of Bandundu, including 34 hectares at Ndunga and Ngulambondo, and another 56 hectares at Masimanimba.

“We have managed to carry out this reforestation work since the start of 2011, thanks to the National Forestry Fund established by the government. The aim is to build up resilience, support green growth, and fight global warming, which has many negative impacts,” he told IPS.

But he regrets that no budget was allocated for the care of these trees once planted, and some have been lost due to bushfires. Mimbu’s NGO is a member of the Natural Resources Network (la Réseau Ressource Naturelles), an umbrella organisation for civil society across Central Africa which works for the defence and promotion of better governance of forest resources.

“Armed conflict remains one of the major challenges in adapting to climate change in the Congo Basin. In the provinces of Maniema and North and South Kivu, in the eastern DRC, which have been plagued by conflict since 1997, shelling by armed groups has caused the degradation of forests, destroying soil fertility with the chemicals found in artillery shells,” said Corneille Lebu, a Congolese ecologist.

“The shelling cuts the leaves which in principle absorb carbon, leaving the soil bare, leading to the leaching (of nutrients) and destroying micro-organisms. There is a marked acceleration in the loss of moisture from the soil and the rapid release of greenhouse gases,” Lebu told IPS. “Since 1997, conflict in DRC have resulted in more than five million deaths.”

Lebu believes that for adaptation measures to succeed, it is essential to bring peace to war-ravaged zones, and to restore the soil using manure.”

Cameroon, the DRC and the Central African Republic have all begun implementing their National Adaptation Programmes, according to a 2010 report of COFCCA, the Congo Basin Forests and Climate Change Adaptation project.

Launched in Yaoundé, Cameroon, in 2008, COFCCA aims to identify and set joint priorities at the national and regional levels for forests and forest services that are vulnerable to climate change. The project also supports the sharing of experiences on adaptation strategies for a transfrontier resource such as the Congo Basin forests.

Elsewhere in the region, in 2010 the Gabonese government established an agency for research and observation of the climate from space, involving a tripartite accord with the French Institute of Research for Development (IRD) and the Brazilian Institute for Space Research.

Gabon has set up a station to receive satellite images, with the primary task of monitoring the state of health of tropical forests of the Congo Basin – 1.8 million square kilometres of forest, and constituting a “green lung” for the planet, second in size only to the Amazon.

In Burundi, deforestation is being countered by planting jatropha. Since 2010, the shrub has been planted on dozens of hectares in the Rukoko conservation area, which lies on the country’s border with DRC. The work has been done by the Tubane Association of Gikuzi with support from the Congo Basin Forest Fund.

A second phase of the project will be supported by the African Development Bank; the aim is to simultaneously combat poverty and protect the environment, with an integrated plan for exploitation of jatropha helping to bring an end to the present “anarchic” clearing of forest in the Rukoko Nature Reserve. The jatropha will reduce the impact of forest cover already lost while reducing pressure to cut down even more trees. People living in areas adjacent to the park will gain from the harvest and sale of raw jatropha seeds – which yield a valuable oil – as well as local production of soap and fertiliser from the seeds.

It’s in line with the government’s commitment to limit the impact of climatic changes due to deforestation, which is a growing problem Burundi. In November 2011, the country’s first vice president, Thérence Sinuguruza, called on the Environment Ministry to draft a law forbidding the unregulated cutting down of trees.

But even taken together, the actions of governments and civil society in Central Africa so far are inadequate, as they have not yet produced the desired results, says Odon Munsadi, a Congolese ecologist. “Communities in our respective countries are not yet applying agro-ecological practices, and the effects of climate change remain unchanged.”

“Sub-Saharan Africa produces less than four percent of greenhouse gases, this is much less than North America, Europe, Asia and other industrialised regions,” according to experts. But, “Africa is already suffering the effects of climate change will only suffer more in the years to come.”

* This article is one of a series supported by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network.

Checking voter registration cards. Credit: Julien Harneis/CC BY-SA 2.0

By Badylon Kawanda Bakiman and - -
KIKWIT, Dec 2 2011 (IPS)

While the Congolese are awaiting the official results of the late November presidential elections, three of the eleven candidates have already called for them to be annulled.

Checking voter registration cards. Credit: Julien Harneis/CC BY-SA 2.0

The people of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) ended up voting over the course of three days, from Nov. 28 to 30, to elect a new head of state and members of parliament, after the elections were extended due to irregularities and several serious incidents that delayed or prevented people from voting.

At the polling station “Collège Saint Boniface” in Masina on the outskirts of Kinshasa, the capital, dozens of voters waited Nov. 30 for hours starting at 7:00 am at the local court. Voting did not start until 11:00 am, following the late arrival of materials, including the ballots.

“I fulfilled my civic duty around 1:00 pm in the presence of national and international observers, as well as witnesses from political parties. Many people gave up trying to vote,” Junior Mvula, a student at the University of Kinshasa, told IPS.

At Kazambangwangwa, a town about 110 km from Kikwit in Bandundu province in the southwest of the country, the people voted Nov. 29. “The materials arrived Nov. 28 around 7:00 pm. Many voters from surrounding villages had already returned home on Monday night because they were too tired to vote,” said Justin Kabasa, a trainer working for the Congolese Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI).

Françoise Kapita, an angry resident of Kikwit, did not vote on Nov. 28. “I travelled to all polling stations in the centre of the city but I couldn’t find my name on any electoral list. Yet I remember having been enrolled in the station of Wayi-Wayi,” she told IPS waving her voter’s card in her hand.

Many voters around the country experienced the same situation. However, the CENI had previously issued a statement that allowed all voters holding an official voter registration card to vote in the polling station where they were enrolled, even if their names were not on the electoral lists.

At Muvuma, a town not far from Kikwit, the local police arrested a nurse called Yvone Mbani on Nov. 28. She has been charged with organised electoral fraud.

“The woman held fake voting booths, ballot boxes and administrative papers; she does work for CENI. These materials were intended to be used at a polling station near Imbongo,” said Patrick Tshefu, a prosecutor in Kikwit where Mbani is being held while the investigation is underway.

“At Bakole in Kananga (in the centre of the country), people are very angry and they burned three polling stations and election materials,” reported Julienne Elameji, a religious worker based in the province of Western Kasai.

“Tempers were rising because the chairman of the polling station in Bakole told voters that only three out of six polling stations were operational because the other three had no equipment,” Elameji told IPS.

“Other official CENI materials, including ballots, were burned on Nov. 28 by the population at Lwandanda, a village 25 km south of Kananga. The people were upset because of the delays,” said Michel Tshiyoyo, a journalist working for a private radio and television company in Kananga.

In Lubumbashi, in Katanga province in the southeast, people witnessed an armed attack.

“In the primary school of Ndjandja, in the town of Kampemba, unidentified armed men entered the polling stations, took the election materials and fired at police on Monday (Nov. 28). Three police officers and a female voter were killed,” said Sylvie Manda Kabongo, a local radio reporter. “People think that the attackers were former Katangan soldiers.”

Some political parties, especially opposition candidate Etienne Tshisekedi’s Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS), denounced several attempts at fraud in polling stations, including the one in Kananga where witnesses reported having seen ballots filled out before the start of the elections.

CENI chairman Daniel Ngoy Mulunda said: “We have been operational at 99.2 percent; in 63,380 polling stations we only had 485 problems. Every time we noticed a problem, we organised a new session for the voters. This situation will however not affect the final results.”

Not everybody agrees. “The vote was held in a hurry. It would have been better if CENI had postponed the elections; the problems would not have happened,” said Floribert Kiama, deputy director of the Mwinda Cultural Centre, a nongovernmental organisation based in Kikwit.

After all these incidents and irregularities, Justine Kakes, the chairwoman of “Dynamique de la jeunesse féminine congolaise”, a national organisation that brings together Congolese girls and young women, is asking herself: “Will the candidates now easily accept the official results?”

Excerpt:

By Badylon Kawanda Bakiman and - -
KIKWIT, DR Congo, Nov 12 2011 (IPS)

The 11 candidates contesting presidential elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo all pledge to improve peace and security in the country – promises received with varying degrees of scepticism by Congolese voters.

“Our ambition is to provide our country with 150,000 soldiers and 200,000 police officers – well- trained personnel – with a view to greater stability in terms of both national defence and public security,” declared Prime Minister Adolphe Muzito on Nov. 4, as he announced the campaign platform of the Presidential Majority, the group which is campaigning for another term for the incumbent president, Joseph Kabila.

Muzito believes that reforms of the army, police and security services which are already under way are on the right path. “The improvement in pay, with the objective of paying every last soldier and police officer more than 100 U.S. dollars (a month), as well as the cleaning up of staff, will contribute to the establishment of a strong army and national police.”

DRC’s army in particular includes large numbers of poorly-trained personnel, former members of armed groups who have been absorbed into the national army. Training – and in some cases dismissing – unsuitable fighters is a key task facing the government.

Meanwhile, insecurity remains a pressing problem, particularly in the east of the country. Members of the national army, as well as fighters belonging to the country’s myriad rebel groups, have been implicated in widespread assault, murder, rape and terrorisation of the population.

The National Strategy for the Fight Against Gender-Based Violence, a document published in 2010 by the Ministry for Gender, the Family and Children, estimates that six million people have been killed or displaced by DRC’s successive wars, the majority of these women and children.

“The growing number of attacks by armed men against civilians has forced tens of thousands of people in (the eastern provinces of) North and South Kivu to flee,” notes the DRC chapter of the International Committee of the Red Cross on its website.

According to an independent study carried out recently for the ICRC, 76 percent of the country’s population has been affected by the armed conflict. Fifty-eight percent have been displaced from their homes; nearly half have lost a close relative; and more than one in four people know someone who has suffered sexual violence.

Working with responses provided by a nationwide sample of more than 3,400 women in the country’s most recent Demographic and Health Survey, U.S. researchers calculate that between 1.7 and 1.8 million Congolese women have been raped in their lifetime: over 400,000 reported having been raped in the year preceding the data collection in 2007.

In an article published in the American Journal of Public Health in June, the study’s authors – Amber Peterman of the International Food Policy Research Institute, Tia Palermo of the School of Medicine at Stony Brook University and the World Bank’s Caryn Bredenkamp – also report that more than one in five women surveyed reported suffering sexual violence from their husbands or partners – leading them to suggest future policy.

Yet Muzito did not set out clearly what President Kabila will do to fight against gender-based violence, if he is re-elected.

“The improvement of working conditions for magistrates and measures to boost morale in the justice sector aims to establish a judicial system better able to guarantee the rights and freedoms of citizens, and to put an end to the impunity that has been so widely condemned,” he explained.

Vital Kamerhe, who is running against Kabila as the presidential candidate for the opposition Union for the Congolese Nation, has offered a more concrete proposal: “If we are elected, we will put in place a joint international court to try and severely punish the perpetrators of rape and violence against women.”

Kamerhe, a former ally of Kabila who served as president of the National Assembly from 2006 to 2009, says the joint court would have competent and incorruptible judges who would be well paid – all part of measures to ensure the judicial system is well equipped to end impunity.

“For good security, we will have a well-trained army and police, strong and very well paid,” he adds.

“The 150,000 troops and 200,000 police called for by (Kabila’s Presidential Majority) will prove insignificant for a country of 2,245,000 square kilometres and around 63 million inhabitants,” says Viviane Lengelo, president of the Network of Women in Action for Integrated Development in DRC. However, she strongly supports the creation of a joint international court for gender-based violence. “Women have suffered so much for nothing.”

Politicians’ promises don’t seem to have convinced a sceptical public. “Simple demagoguery,” says Rose Muntupanza, a farmer in Bandundu, in the southwest of DRC. “For years now we have heard so many honeyed words – but without concrete actions.”

“Promises are only promises,” agrees Mbuta Mwashi, a member of the Union of Mobutuist Democrats, one of the 400+ political parties. “We are waiting for concrete action.”

“To ensure security for all citizens in a country as large as the DRC is not easy – a country where women suffer from violence of all kinds,” says Laurent Bwenia Muhenia, of the African Association for the Defence of Human Rights, a local civil society organisation. The winner of the elections must respect his promises, “if not, that will not go down well with the population, above all with women,” he added.

Excerpt:

Subsistence farmers in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s southwestern Bandundu Province are seeing their harvests double, thanks to an ambitious programme of support by the government.

Drying cassava: improved seed varieties and agricultural extension are boosting farmers' yields in DRC. Credit: Ken Wiegand/Wikicommons

The Agriculture Sector Support and Rehabilitation Programme, known by its French acronym PARSAR, is providing smallholders with access to improved seed and advice on agricultural techniques as well as upgrading roads to ease their access to markets. The results have been strongly positive.

“Before 2008, our association worked hard and produced little: only one tonne of cassava or rice per hectare. But when PARSAR began to back us, the whole production picture changed. Every year since 2008, we have produced four or five tonnes per hectare of the Nsansa variety of cassava,” says Guy Lasere, coordinator of a group of 44 farmers in a district 140 kilometres from the provincial capital, Kikwit.

Lasere says the Mulele group belongs to a Village Seed Association, a grouping of 28 farmers’ collectives set up by PARSAR.

“PARSAR has set up 15 such seed associations, each comprised of between 20 and 40 smallholder organisations. These associations produce improved seed varieties and distribute them to farmers. They are coordinated by the Bandundu Smallholders’ Network which functions as a kind of union for these structures,” explains Amede Mungwele, another coordinator at PARSAR.

“We have four collective fields, each covering 16 hectares. Since 2009, with the j124 groundnut variety, we have produced three tonnes per hectare, compared to one tonne in previous years. The same thing happened with the irat12 rice variety, which is currently yielding four tonnes per hectare, compared to only or two tonnes in previous years,” says the president of Nsimulungu’s association, Nestor Nkama.

Unlocking farmers’ potential

The population of Bandundu province – and the DRC in general – has long endured food insecurity, despite conditions naturally suited to agriculture. This is due to long years of civil war as well as the lack of effective agricultural methods.

The 2008 strategy document that sets out the Congolese government’s national programme for agriculture through 2013 states that nearly 17 million people in the DRC are going hungry. The Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that nearly 73 percent of the Congolese population lives with food insecurity.

“The country has about 135 million hectares of agricultural land, which takes up 34 percent of the national land, and only 10 percent of this has been developed,” says the document.

It is in answer to this challenge that the Congolese government introduced the PARSAR development project in 2008.

“This project revolves around four components: institutional support, capacity building, support for agricultural production, and the rehabilitation of basic socioeconomic infrastructure. All this is being done thanks to the financial support of the African Development Bank amounting to nearly 30 million dollars,” explains Lambert Diango, president of PARSAR’s Bandundu branch.

“Every quarter, we show the subsistence farmers new production techniques,” says Jean Misiwense, a supervisor at PARSAR. “We give them the improved seeds provided by the National Agricultural for Study and Research in Agriculture, and monitored by the National Seed Service (SEMASEM). We also give them tools and equipment, and we carry out monitoring.”

According to Misiwense, the improved seeds have short growing cycles and high productivity levels. They are are also more resistant to plant diseases compared to other local seeds.

“At present, more than 200,000 households are benefiting from large quantities of good quality agricultural products. And more than 350 kilometres of road have been rehabilitated by the project to allow the smallholders to move their produce,” he adds.

Smallholder farmers in Bandundu Province are boosting their harvests with the help of the sweetly-named velvet bean.

Mucuna pruriens var utilis Credit: Japan National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences

For some time, farmers in Bandundu, particularly in the Kwilu district, have been battling static or declining agricultural output – not entirely surprising when they were forced to plant on the same land without applying fertiliser or allowing fields a fallow period.

But several dozen smallholders in Kwilu have adopted Mucuna utilis – the velvet bean – as a means of protecting soil fertility.

“Ever since we started using this plant, we haven’t had any problems with infertile soil. Thanks to the plant, this year our family has produced five bags of groundnuts, whereas in the past, without the Mucuna utilis, we were getting only one and a half or two bags,” says Nicolas Mimpaka, a peasant farmer from Kwenge, 25 kilometres from Kikwit, the capital of the mainly rural province of Bandundu.

Mimpaka and others in the the Kwilu district in the south of the province come to Kikwit to sell their produce – groundnuts, maize, cassava, rice, marrows, beans, and other vegetables – to traders or to transport companies who provide Kinshasa, the capital of the DRC, with fresh food.

The velvet bean has been introduced to the area by the Support to Peasant Farmer Development Initiatives (known by its French acronym, AIPD), an umbrella organisation for agriculture in the area.

“From 2008 to 2009, we carried out experiments in the Kwenge and Lukamba regions, and we observed positive results,” says Emmanuel Malenda, an agronomist and one of the managers of AIPD.

Mulenda says out of 50 fields under observation during that research period, 45 became more fertile thanks to Mucuna utilis, and produced great quantities of cassava, maize, groundnuts and marrows. The plant is a legume that is grown in conjunction with other plants as a cover crop, a live mulch that helps retain moisture and transfers nitrogen from the air to the soil via its the nodes on its roots.

During workshops to promote the plant, agronomist Cyprien Ngeleto highlighted the plant’s useful characteristics. “Mucuna utilis can be planted towards the end of the rainy season, as it is drought resistant. After cultivation, it protects and regenerates the soil, due to the rapid germination of the plant’s seeds over a period of four to six days.”

Farmers enthusiastic

“As agriculture is our livelihood, this plant is helping us a lot. My husband doesn’t have work, but we eat nearly every day,” says Jeanne Mplilikwomo, a Kikwit farmer. She says farming has allowed her to buy her children’s school uniforms and pay their school fees.

On a community radio programme, another smallholder, Jeanine Mandondo, comments: “Instead of practising the system of making forests fallow, a system that takes five, six or eight years, we prefer to grow this plant ourselves, and it is definitely the secret to increasing our agricultural production.”

“Six months is enough for Mucuna utilis to fertilise the soil,” adds Robert Manianga, a farmer from Lubungu, another village within a few kilometres of Kikwit.

The velvet bean is quickly securing a place in the farming practice in this corner of Bandundu, where it is contributing to food security and rural livelihoods.