Showing posts from category DRC.
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Apply Now for the Compton Foundation/PRB International Fellowship
Doing Research on Reproductive Health, Environment, and Security?
›January 19, 2011 // By Hannah Marqusee
The Population Reference Bureau and Compton Foundation’s International Fellows Program deadline is rapidly approaching on January 24. The fellowship is for students from sub-Saharan Africa or Latin America seeking to affect policy and/or improve the effectiveness of population, family planning, and reproductive health programs in the developing world. Master’s students may be awarded up to $10,000 and PhD students up to $20,000 to perform capstone/internship work or dissertation research on the intersection between reproductive health, the environment, and security.
2010 Compton/PRB Fellow Kennedy Maring, a Ugandan student at UNC Chapel Hill, spent a year researching the feasibility of integrating family planning services into HIV/AIDS programs in Masindi, Uganda, in order to address high rates of mother-to-child transmission of HIV. Maring interviewed 182 pregnant women and 11 health providers in Masindi, and found that while more women in the area understood that HIV could be passed from mother to child than the national average, few were using available services such as HIV counseling or family planning. Her research resulted in many recommendations to improve prevention of HIV transmission and use of family planning, including: integrate family planning into HIV prevention; train more health providers; involve men in reproductive health care; encourage hospital delivery; bring services to the people; and provide free breast milk supplements.
Patrick Kipalu, an American University student from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), traveled deep into his country’s forests to interview indigenous people about their perspective on and awareness of climate change, deforestation, and mitigation programs such as the UN Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation program (REDD). Kipalu’s research showed that weak forestry governance, widespread ignorance of forestry laws, corruption, and lack of indigenous community participation, among other challenges, will make successful implementation of REDD difficult. If the current style of forestry management in the DRC continues, REDD will only provide incentives for more corruption and deforestation, he found. In this highly centralized government process, the government, logging companies, and other powerful stakeholders will reap all the benefits without any revenue going back to benefit indigenous forest communities.
How to Apply
2011 fellowship applications are being accepted until January 24, 2011. To apply, send a completed application form, curriculum vitae, cover letter, transcript, abstract of proposed research, budget, and two letters of recommendation to Dr. Ashley Frost at afrost@prb.org. Master’s students must also provide a letter from the organization where their capstone/internship will take place, and Ph.D. students must provide proof of an approved research proposal.
For full instructions, visit the fellowship site on PRB.
Photo Credit: Adapted from “photoshot,” courtesy of flickr user hippolyte. -
Research Findings and Programmatic Implications
Gender-Based Violence in the DRC
›In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), “armed conflict has resulted in mass displacement and widespread sexual violence; the problem is that it hasn’t always been quantified,” said Dr. Lynn Lawry, senior health stability and humanitarian assistance specialist at the U.S. Department of Defense. Presenting findings from the first cross-sectional, randomized cluster study on gender-based violence in the DRC, Lawry was joined at the Wilson Center by Heidi Lehmann, director of the Gender-based Violence Unit at the International Rescue Committee, and Dr. Nancy Glass, associate professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing and associate director at the Johns Hopkins Center for Global Health. “We found that sexual violence in these areas is conflict-related, prevalent, systematic, and widespread,” said Lawry. [Video Below]
Study Finds “Female Perpetrators”
The first of its kind in the region, the population-based, quantitative study covers three districts in the DRC and a total of 5.2 million adults. It comprehensively assesses gender-based violence, including its prevalence, circumstances, perpetrators, and physical and mental health impacts.
Overall, the study found that 2.1 million women and 1.3 million men in the region had suffered sexual violence. Nearly three-quarters of all sexual violence reported was a direct result of conflict. In the study region, 20 percent of the population fought in conflicts, and 48 percent of these combatants were female.
Further, 39 percent of female survivors and 15 percent of male survivors reported female perpetrators. “These findings challenge the paradigm of male perpetrator and female victim,” said Lawry. “Policymakers and donors should adjust societal paradigms of sexual and gender-based violence and also direct attention to female perpetrators and male survivors.” Survivors of sexual violence in conflict, both male and female, are more at risk of later becoming perpetrators, particularly if unrecognized and untreated. To “break the cycle of violence,” prevention and response programs should address the needs of survivors and combatant perpetrators of both genders.
“Community-related violence is a general crime; conflict-related violence is a war crime,” Lawry said. While many efforts have focused on the Congolese military, she called for the DRC government and the International Criminal Court to also investigate and prosecute members of rebel groups, who were found to be the main perpetrators of sexual violence and other human rights abuses in this study.
Prevention: The Best Response
“Meeting the immediate consequences of violence is not enough,” said Lehmann. To effectively address gender-based violence, programs must provide medical and social services, promote social empowerment, respond to emergencies, and take part in advocacy and coordination efforts.
In the DRC, programs supported by the International Rescue Committee serve approximately 350 to 400 survivors per month, 75 percent of whom report that the perpetrators are members of armed groups.
Scaling up is a major challenge. “Providing essential services alone require enormous investment, and there is no common understanding of comprehensive programming,” said Lehmann. “We recognize that a program alone cannot solve all of these problems, especially in the DRC.”
“Good response is about prevention,” concluded Lehmann. She recommended supporting robust, long-term programming; integrating gender-based violence prevention efforts into other sectors; and investing in partnerships. “We are not going to end the violence unless Congolese women and girls are part of the conversation.”
Pigs for Peace: A Holistic Approach
Health care, economic development, and social programs should be integrated “to provide a holistic and comprehensive approach” to the problem of gender-based violence, said Glass. “Rape destabilizes families and communities,” she said.
Survivors rarely get immediate treatment for their injuries and trauma, or the risk of HIV, STIs, and infertility. “Many rural primary health centers and hospitals have been looted of medicines and materials by rebels and soldiers,” said Glass. Conflict in the DRC has also caused health care professionals to leave unstable rural areas, and poor roads and limited transportation make it unsafe and expensive to seek care.
To rebuild families and communities, “women and men need to regain their economic resources to provide for the future of their family and community,” said Glass. Pigs for Peace, for example, has supplied more than 100 women — many of them rape survivors — and their families with pigs to set them on the path to recovery through psychological, social, and economic empowerment. This program aims not only to supplement household income, but to reduce the stigma of rape as survivors become productive parts of their families and communities.
Photo Credit: “Congo kivu,” courtesy of flickr user andré thiel. -
Rape, Resource Management, and the UN in Congo: What Can Be Done?
›Rape as a weapon of war is not unique to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), but the scope and degree to which it occurs in this part of the world, especially in the resource-rich eastern provinces – an epicenter of violence during the war – is alarming and unprecedented.
Walikale, the site of a recent scourge of rapes and violence is not unlike several other cities and villages in the Kivus and in the DRC in general. Rich in both tin and gold, Walikale is beset by a convergence of several opposing military factions: the rebel Congrès National pour la Défense du Peuple, (CNDP), whose members have supposedly been reintegrated into the official Congolese army; the FARDC, who have been accused of crimes as egregious as those committed by rebel armies; the Rwandan FDLR; Tutsi rebel factions; and numerous other smaller rebel groups and non-Congolese military groups.
The raping of more than 300 women, children, and men that occurred between July 31 and August 2 in the area of Walikale and the village of Ruvungi has made international news headlines and caused an uproar about the role and responsibilities of the United Nation mission in the DRC – MONUSCO (formerly MONUC) – and their capacity to actually keep the peace. UN peacekeepers, stationed about 30 kilometers away from the attacks, were reportedly aware of rebel activity in the area, but were not aware of the mass raping until after the crimes had been committed. Officials went on a fact-finding mission several days later once the rapes were reported by the International Medical Corps. Some, however, argue that officials should have acted differently, dispatching peacekeepers to the Walikale area as soon as they were made aware of rebel activity.
UN workers and other international organizations may have known about the rapes while they were occurring, and in retrospect the international community can criticize their inaction during the perpetration of this massive atrocity, but there are larger questions that loom: Why has the DRC become the “rape capital of the world?” And what can we do to enable UN peacekeeping forces to actually keep the peace?
More than two months after these crimes were perpetrated, rapes are no doubt still occurring across the region. The UN has declared that militias will be charged for the crimes in Walikale, arrests have already been made, and there are people doing good work to help the victims of sexual crimes after the fact. But despite these efforts and the ongoing presence of MONUSCO and efforts to integrate and train the FARDC as a legitimate army that protects the citizens of the country, sexual violence against civilians, and especially against women, has continued at an outrageous level.
The mandate of MONUSCO, carried over in part from its predecessor, MONUC, is to both protect civilians and backstop the efforts of the FARDC – a sometimes conflicting mandate. Designed to keep the peace and monitor the implementation of the ceasefire agreement, to “facilitate humanitarian assistance and human rights monitoring, with particular attention to vulnerable groups including women, children and demobilized child soldiers” (emphasis added), the UN mission has clearly not been able to successfully fulfill this mandate, even after almost 12 years on the ground. While the UN charter does not explicitly include the word “peacekeeping,” and there are those who argue that it is not properly structured to act as a peacekeeping body, the UN has more than 60 peacekeeping missions under its belt since its first mission in 1948 and the DRC is its largest ever. Still, the weak record of success of MONUC and of its successor MONUSCO together with the unreliability of the FARDC does not inspire confidence for the safety or security of civilians in the DRC.
Why the rapes continue and why neither MONUSCO nor the Congolese authorities are unable to stop them are complicated questions. Explanations range from political complications preventing peacekeepers from becoming involved in day-to-day human security to a simple lack of mission resources. The rapes in Walikale occurred in an area with abundant tin deposits and some of the largest gold mines in the country. The DRC, and the east in particular, is ripe with resources, and historically, underdeveloped regions characterized by such a heavy concentration of natural resources are often more cursed than they are blessed. The competition over resources and violence spurred by an unequal distribution of rents is perhaps part of the reason for such intense violence; it does not, however, explain why rape has become a weapon of choice, why women have become a target of war crimes in general, or why the level of violence against women in the DRC in particular has risen to such a horrifying level.
Justine Lindemann is program assistant with the Africa Program at the Woodrow Wilson Center.
Sources: AFP, AFRICOM, AllAfrica, BBC, Congo Siasa, IPS News, The New York Times, Panzi Hospital of Bukavu, UN, UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, VII Photo Agency.
Photo Credit: “Congo kivu,” courtesy of flickr user andré thiel. -
Saleem Ali at TEDxUVM on Environmental Peacemaking
›“The use of the term ‘peace’ is in many circles still considered taboo, because immediately people think you are talking about something that is utopian,” said University of Vermont Professor Saleem Ali at a recent TEDx event on sustainability. “But I’m here to tell you that peace is pragmatic. Peace is possible.”
Ali points out the value of peace to every sector of society and, using an example from Ecuador and Peru, argues for the utility of the environment as a peacemaker. Other longstanding conflict areas like Cyprus, Iraq, Israel, and Korea are also ripe for environmental peacebuilding efforts, he says.
Professor Ali has written for The New Security Beat before on the strengths and weaknesses of viewing conservation and sustainability efforts through a strictly security lens. He points out that environmentalists must tread a fine line when assigning causality between the environment and conflict, but even when natural resources or climate are not central to a conflict, environmental peacebuilding can still play a role in creating shared ground (sometimes literally) between combatants.
“Treasures of the Earth,” Ali’s latest book, examines the thorny subject of how best to balance resource extraction in developing countries with long-term sustainability. Recent examples, such as Angola and Liberia’s blood diamonds, the DRC’s conflict minerals, and concerns over Afghanistan’s potential reserves have shown the difficulty in striking that balance.
“Ultimately, conflict trumps everything else” in terms of what we ought to be concerned with, Ali argues, and therefore, anyone, no matter their profession or capacity, should keep the pursuit of peace in mind – and all options on the table – when making decisions that affect others. -
“There Is No Choice:” Climate, Health, Water, Food Security Must Be Integrated, Say Experts
›August 9, 2010 // By Russell SticklorBureaucratic stovepipes plague international development efforts, and aid for pressing environmental and human security concerns—such as climate change, food shortages, fresh water access, and global health threats—rarely matches the reality on the ground in the developing world, where such health and environmental problems are fundamentally interconnected.
Instead, development efforts in the field—whether spearheaded by multilaterals, bilaterals, or NGOs—are commonly devoted to single sectors: e.g., the prevention and treatment of a single disease; the implementation of irrigation infrastructure in a specific area; or the introduction of a new crop in a certain region. The reasons for such a narrow focus can come from multiple sources: finite resources, narrowly constructed funding streams, emphasis on simple and discrete indicators of success, and institutional and professional development penalties for those who conduct integrated work. But some experts argue that integrating problem-solving initiatives across categories would not only improve the efficacy of development efforts, but also better improve lives in target communities.
As part of the USAID Knowledge Management Center‘s 2010 Summer Seminar Series, a recent National Press Club panel on integration featured a frank discussion of both the opportunities and challenges inherent in breaking down barriers within and between development agencies. Panelists from the World Bank’s Environment Department, the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Environment Change and Security Program weighed in on the prospects for cross-sectoral integration.
Addressing the impacts of a global problem like climate change “requires multilevel approaches,” and necessitates that we “think multisectorally along the lines of agriculture, water, transportation, energy, [and] security,” said Loren Labovitch of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. The four topics under discussion—climate change, food security, water, and health—are all Obama administration priorities, as reflected by dedicated programs and special initiatives. Finding ways to practically integrate these interrelated challenges (through efforts like the Feed the Future Initiative or the Global Health Initiative) is getting more attention from policy analysts and policymakers with each passing year.
Integration in Practice: Success Stories
While there may be an emerging willingness to discuss and even experiment with holistic programming, what does it actually look in practice? Panelist Geoff Dabelko, director of the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program, singled out integrated development programs in the Philippines, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Asia as examples.
Philippines: The PATH Foundation Philippines’ Integrated Population and Coastal Resource Management (IPOPCORM) initiative uses an integrated approach to address health and environmental concerns in coastal communities. Their “basket of services” includes establishing a locally managed protected marine sanctuary to allow local fish stocks to recover, promoting alternative economic livelihoods outside of the fishing industry, and improving access to local health services and commodities, said Dabelko. To date, IPOPCORM has yielded several notable improvements, among them reduced program costs and improved health and environmental outcomes as compared to side-by-side single sector interventions. A forthcoming peer-reviewed article will appear in Environmental Conservation, and will detail the controlled comparison study of the IPOPCORM project.
Democratic Republic of Congo: Mercy Corps has also successfully pursued cross-sectoral programming as part of a larger effort to be more holistic in its humanitarian and development responses. In war-torn eastern DRC, Mercy Corps brought practitioners with expertise in natural resource management into the fold of what has historically been an emergency relief mission. In particular, the Mercy Corps mission has fused humanitarian assistance with longer-term development efforts such as enhanced environmental stewardship. For example, promoting the use of fuel-efficient cookstoves eases pressure on local forest resources by lowering the need for firewood, and improves respiratory health by lowering air pollution. The project scaled up the effort through resources from further integration, with carbon credits from avoided emissions being sold through a local broker to the European cap and trade market. These resources in turn helped finance more cook stoves, which now total 20,000 for this project.
“The lesson is we have no excuse for not doing this anywhere in the world and saying some place is too unstable,” Dabelko said. “If we can do it [integrated projects] in eastern DRC, we should be able to do it anywhere.”
Asia: Tackling programmatic integration starts with better understanding the interconnections between environmental and health challenges. Dabelko cited a recent effort of the environment and natural resources team within USAID’s Asia Bureau as an example of breaking out of narrow bureaucratic stovepipes.
USAID staff recognized that a wide set of climate, energy, economic, governance, and conflict issues affected their core biodiversity and water portfolios, even if they did not have the time, expertise, or resources to investigate those issues in detail. Trends that appeared to be in the periphery were not viewed as peripheral to planning and designing programs for long-term success.
Working with the Woodrow Wilson Center, the USAID Asia Regional Bureau engaged experts on a diverse set of topics normally considered outside their portfolios. The resulting workshop series and report led to a deeper understanding of the possible impacts of increased Himalayan glacier melt and Chinese hydropower plans on food security and biodiversity programs in the lower reaches of the Mekong River. Bringing analysis from these topically and geographically remote areas into local-level development planning is a process that will require a similar willingness to go outside the typical bounds of one’s brief.
More Integration Ahead?
These case studies provide a glimpse of what integrated programming can look like on the ground. Still, significant hurdles remain standing in the way of regular and effective integration. Cross-sectoral programming demands that old problems be addressed in innovative and perhaps unfamiliar ways, requiring the addition of new capacity in development organizations and better coordination within and between agencies. That can be a complicated process, noted Dabelko, since efforts to pursue greater programming integration can be “hamstrung by earmarks and line items.”
Integration can also prove tricky because it requires a greater willingness to accept multiple indicators of success unfolding over different time frames—health gains may occur quickly, for example, while progress on environmental conservation may unfold less speedily. This means existing programs might need to be reshaped and reoriented to accommodate these divergent time frames, which could prove somewhat difficult. “Integration can be a challenge, both from a programming perspective and from an organizational perspective,” acknowledged moderator Tegan Blaine, climate change advisor for USAID’s Africa Bureau.
Further, the temptation remains strong among appropriators and implementers alike to maintain control over authority and resources in their traditional portfolios. Getting long-time practitioners in particular issue areas to willingly cede some of their turf in the pursuit of greater integration has historically been the “real world” that stands in the way of such integrated work.
But, as shown by the standing-room-only crowd at the seminar, momentum is slowly starting to build in pursuit of breaking down old programming walls and finding new approaches to addressing emerging challenges in human and environmental security.
“There is no choice” but to fuse development agendas with climate change adaptation efforts, asserted Warren Evans, director of the World Bank’s Environment Department. “It can’t be a parallel process anymore.”
Photo Credit: “2010 Summer Seminar Series – July 15th Panel Discussion on Food Security, Climate Change, Water and Health,” used courtesy of USAID and the National Press Club. -
Population Reference Bureau Releases New Projections
Seven Billion and Counting
›August 6, 2010 // By Russell SticklorThe Population Reference Bureau recently released its annual World Population Data Sheet, and lo and behold, the world is getting more crowded. By next year, the global total is expected to top seven billion, as we march toward upwards of nine billion by mid-century.
Much of that growth, of course, will be unfolding across Asia — China and India already account for more than 35 percent of the world’s population, and the two countries will continue to drive global demographic change. But the PRB report emphasized that Africa will also contribute significantly to world’s shifting demographics in the coming decades. By 2050, the continent’s population is slated to double, reaching the neighborhood of two billion. In that time span, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ethiopia are expected to knock Russia and Japan off the list of the world’s top 10 most populous nations.
The Young Continent
Africa’s population growth through 2050 could actually be even greater than PRB predicts, since current projections assume that total fertility rate in sub-Saharan Africa will drop from 5.2 to 2.5 in that time span. The assumption is that as the region’s countries travel farther down the path to economic modernization, access to family planning services will become more widespread, resulting in smaller average family sizes—a trend well-documented in other parts of the developing world.
A slower than expected decrease in total fertility rate (TFR) across sub-Saharan Africa over the next 40 years could render current predictions inaccurate, however. While TFR has dropped significantly over the past 50 years in countries like Ghana (where it is now 4.0), just 17 percent of married women in sub-Saharan African utilize a modern type of family planning. That is one of the reasons Africa as a whole maintains a high average TFR of 4.7 children per woman, and why countries like Niger and Uganda sport some of the highest TFRs in the world (at 7.4 and 6.5, respectively).
According to the 2010 PRB Data Sheet, Africa is also notable for its demographic youth bulge. Of the world’s 10 countries with the highest percentage of their populations aged 15 or younger, nine of them—Niger, Uganda, Burkina Faso, the DRC, Zambia, Malawi, Chad, Somalia, and Tanzania—are on the continent. The question facing these countries is whether their young populations will yield a “demographic dividend” during the coming decades, whereby the large youth bulges translate into a sizeable and productive workforce. Harnessing the economic potential of the younger generation could help accelerate the development process in many of the region’s nations, but it will require significant investment in health and education infrastructure—funding that may prove hard to come by for many cash-strapped governments.
Persistent Divides
Other findings featured in the report involved sanitation and wastewater treatment, where some headway is being made at the global level. The PRB Data Sheet reveals that 43 percent of urban populations in sub-Saharan Africa (and 24 percent of the region’s rural populations) now have access to improved sanitation, while 86 percent of urban populations (and 55 percent of rural populations) have better sanitation services in Latin America and the Caribbean. The figures highlight progress, but reveal the significant divide that persists between urban and rural areas in terms of access to quality sanitation. According to the PRB, some 2.7 billion people—40 percent of the world’s total—still do not enjoy adequate sanitation facilities, and most live in rural areas of the developing world.
Finally, an interesting trend that will impact developed and developing nations alike involves elderly support ratios, or the number of active workforce members between the ages of 15 and 64 available to support a nation’s non-working, 65-and-older population. While rapidly growing countries in the developing world will continue to enjoy high elderly support ratios, a number of countries across the developed world will face a potential financial crisis, as comparatively low support ratios combine with rapidly aging populations to strain available financial resources earmarked for covering pension payments and healthcare infrastructure costs. To make up for the shortfall over the coming decades, the PRB report predicts that some developed nations may be inclined to further throw open the doors to immigration to bolster workforce ranks—a step recommended by Jack Goldstone in ECSP Report 13.
Sources: New York Times, Population Reference Bureau, Population Council, PR Newswire, United Nations Population Division, WHO/UNICEF Jointing Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation
Photo Credit: “Famine in Niger, Africa,” courtesy of flickr user liquidslave. -
Addressing Gender-Based Violence to Curb HIV
›July 28, 2010 // By Marie HokensonAt the recent International AIDS Conference in Vienna, Austria, an astonishing development in the campaign to stem the spread of HIV/AIDS was unveiled—a microbicide with the ability to reduce the risk of transmission of HIV. This welcome development coincides with an intensified focus on women’s health and security needs among donors, especially the United States.
At the conference, the “Gender Programming and Practices: Practical Approaches with HIV and AIDS” session took an integrated approach, examining the links between gender-based violence and HIV/AIDS infection. Women are more vulnerable to gender-based violence and HIV infection than men, particularly in parts of sub-Saharan Africa where “girls and women aged 15 to 19 are three times more likely” to become infected with HIV than men in the same age group, according to the World Bank.
Michelle Moloney-Kitts, with the Office of the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator, said that gender-based violence “affects not only public health, but [also] the ability of women and girls to contribute to developing their countries.” Since women play integral roles in supporting their families and communities in developing nations, their absence or weakened capacity due to HIV infection, injuries, or unwanted pregnancy can have larger repercussions for economic development and community health.
Deep Roots: Changing Minds About Gender-Based Violence
Elizabeth Mataka, the UN Secretary-General’s special envoy for AIDS in Africa, described the obstacles facing female victims of gender-based violence as “deep-rooted social, economic, legal, and cultural affairs” in their communities. Mataka asserted that “communities must be engaged” through a “change in mindset” in order to allow these women to “claim their basic human rights.” Scrutinizing the paucity of women’s organizations, she cited a “serious shortage of women’s leadership at the grassroots level” as a problem that must be overcome to empower and protect women.
Pamela Barnes, a co-leader of the Partnership to End Sexual Violence Against Girls, highlighted the extent of this “deep-rooted societal issue.” She pointed out that a 2007 Swaziland study found the most “common venue for sexual violence was…within the homes of the victims.”
Rui Bastos, representing Mozambique’s Ministry of Health, added that there is a pressing need to “change relationships between men and women,” and called for a shift in the current relationship dynamic to “give power to the women.” Noting the low number of men receiving HIV treatment, he called on men to “increase demand in treatment” in order to stem the spread of the disease.
Silent Voices: Talking About Sexual Violence Against Minors
Since the Swaziland survey found that “30 percent of the respondents indicated that they had experienced some form of sexual violence prior to the age of 15,” Barnes said greater efforts must be made to educate children about how to protect themselves from sexual violence. She added that efforts to protect children should also address other “risk factors for abuse [which] include lack of education, exposure to emotional abuse, and witnessing sexual assault.”
At a recent Wilson Center event on sexual violence against minors, Jama Gulaid of UNICEF Swaziland said that while talking about sexuality is not easy, “when you bring in violence it is even more difficult.” For that reason, Gulaid said, “you have to do two things—you have to share information and you have to present it in certain ways.” He explained that Swaziland was addressing the issue by relying on school-based interventions, which include trained community-child protection groups, toll-free telephone lines, case investigation services, and personal counseling.
Prevention First: Scaling Up to Stop Rape
While the new microbicide might help female victims of sexual violence avoid HIV infection, it will not stop the problem of gender-based violence. That is why Moloney-Kitts called on donors and NGOs to “scale up gender-based violence programs,” but in a way that goes beyond simply improving “post-rape care” and instead places greater emphasis on prevention efforts.
Not only would better rape prevention help reduce HIV and STD infection rates, but it would also help women avoid psychological damage and unwanted pregnancies—and, as Moloney-Kitts pointed out, improve economic development and enhance public health at the same time.
For more on gender-based violence, see these Wilson Center events:- Gender-Based Violence in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Review of Demographic and Health Survey Findings and Their Use in National Planning
- From Relief to Development: Gender-Based Violence Interventions in Conflict and Post-Conflict Contexts
- Dynamics Of Sexual Violence In The Eastern Democratic Republic Of Congo: Perpetrators, Community Response, and Policy Implications
Photo Credit: “Congo Kivu Violences Panzi,” used courtesy of flickr user andré thiel. -
Landmark Law Takes Aim at the “Resource Curse”
›July 22, 2010 // By Schuyler NullBy signing the financial overhaul package on Wednesday, President Obama also enacted the first major U.S. government attempt to require transparency in the international oil, gas, and mineral trade, aimed at reducing the risk of “resource curse” scenarios that have plagued countries like Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The amendment, sponsored by Senators Bill Cardin and Richard Lugar, requires extractive companies registered with the SEC to publicly disclose their tax and revenue payments to foreign governments. The amendment singles out the DRC for additional scrutiny: companies trading in tin, coltan, wolframite, and gold – minerals found commonly in eastern Congo – will need to report whether they are sourcing from the DRC or its neighbors and disclose what steps they have taken to ensure that their supplies are conflict-free.
The international community will be eagerly watching the results of this effort. Can a U.S. law on conflict minerals reduce violence in the DRC’s complex civil war? I recently argued that while the legislation is a great initial effort, it will have little immediate impact on the violence and suffering in the country. In a recent interview with New Security Beat, EITI expert Jill Shankleman called the Cardin-Lugar bill “an important step” but pointed out that it only covers companies who are listed with the SEC and does not reduce the need for countries to enter into EITI.
Will this new law help Afghanistan – with its allegedly vast stores of valuable minerals – avoid the fate of the DRC? While some fear that corruption and lack of transparency may lead to conflict around the new Chinese contract to operate Afghanistan’s Aynak copper field, a recent U.S. Army War College paper argues that contrary to prevailing opinion, the Chinese approach to large-scale extractive investments could complement Western-led military stabilization efforts.
Photo Credit: “Wolframite” from the DRC, courtesy of flickr user Julien Harneis.
