 MSI recently was awarded the Promoting Stabilization and Community Reintegration Project (PSCRP) in Eastern Congo, funded by USAID. In the current war in Congo, estimates are as high as 5 million for the number of people who have lost their lives. Other lives have been shattered by the high incidence of rape. 
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Peace Huts and Local Committees Begin Reconciliation in Congo While the Democratic Republic of Congo’s war ended in 2003, the eastern part of the country remains mired in instability, with conflicts between the Congolese Army and various rebel groups. The Promoting Stabilization and Community Reconstruction Project (PSCRP) has been the first to help reconstruct the community and assist in transforming the conflict in eastern Congo. MSI teamed up with British NGO International Alert to create strategies to tackle the community’s conflict. MSI is assisting in stabilizing 30 communities, tying in other components of the overall stabilization agenda. MSI is working to address reconstruction and conflict resolution in tandem to improve the project’s sustainability. MSI is providing grants and helping to build the ability of local NGOs to support community-level conflict resolution. MSI also provides grants of approximately $50,000 to community organizations’ socioeconomic projects. Members of the community spearhead the process to improve local governing and oversight of community organizations while they work on their local projects. In addition to this work, PSCRP oversaw the election of 15 local development committees in the South Kivu province by their constituents. The process ensured fair representation of marginalized groups such as women, ex-combatants and minority ethnic groups. They received training on governing and project management, and have presented 15 grant requests for a variety of infrastructure projects. Divided ethnic communities held two inter-community meetings for the first time, which will be repeated regularly during the project to measure progress. In addition, three mediation committees were established and members received training, while five peace huts and barazas (cross-community councils) received training on mediation and reconciliation techniques. Where formal justice is largely dysfunctional and local conflicts have quickly escalated, these committees offer the population venues for conflict resolution and reconciliation. MSI has begun creating this system in the Congo’s province of North Kivu. USAID is supporting community reconstruction and peace-building needs as determined by the United Nations and the Congolese government’s stabilization agenda. Go to our Practice Areas section to access more projects by category |
