Watch the recording on YouTube.

Africa Lunch Meeting Webinar on 1 December with Onesphore Sematumba, analyst at International Crisis Group where he covers the DRC and Burundi and previously at the Goma-based Pole Institute, and Josaphat Musamba, PhD Student at Ghent Universityand researcher at the Groupe d’Etudes sur les Conflits-Sécurité Humanitaire (GEC-SH) within the Centre d’Études de Recherche Universitaire du Kivu (CERUKI). Despite two decades, of successive regional, national and local DDR programmes and initiatives, there currently remain about 120 armed groups active in the DRC. DDR remains an essential component of efforts to reduce the threat posed by armed groups and is an important building block for MONUSCO’s exit strategy. President Tshisekedi has clearly signaled his intent to pursue a new community-based national DDR approach, the DDRC, which includes, beyond support for ex-combatants, the building of community resilience and absorptive capacity. Debate on the future DDR programming is thus essential for the future of the DRC’s conflict affected areas and the prospects for stabilisation efforts of these provinces. It will also require that the Congo’s international partners and donors work closely with the government to fund and support mechanisms and policies, with full awareness that these policy considerations are also strongly affected by the ongoing political turbulence in Kinshasa.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)