Addressing Nutrition, Health, Social and PoliticalShocks: Dealing with Conflict and Migration –

Perspectives from the DRC

Prof. Em. Eric TollensK.U.Leuven, Faculty of Bioscience Engineering

Centre for Bio-EconomicsLeuven

IFPRI 2020 Conference on Building Resiliencefor Food and Nutrition Security

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, May 14-17, 2014

Introduction

DRC faces a chronic humanitarian crisis and is still coming out of protracted conflict in Central Africa

Eastern DRC still not fully pacified 20,000 MONUSCO troops still in the country, costing 1.3

billion$/year 2003-2006: political transition towards a democratic government,

with the main rebel parties part of the government In a huge country like the DRC with large ethnic diversity, there is

likely to be always some place with localized internal conflict Land rights emerging as a main cause of such conflict, together

with mineral rights

During and Just After the Political Transition

Great optimism during the transition Donors were very generous in providing short term emergency

/humanitarian aid with no particular conditionalities imposedduring the transition

For such aid, multilateral (UN) institutions favored But after the transition, bilateral aid became dominant The transition from short term emergency/humaniatarian aid

towards longer term development aid is difficult, with aidconditionalities emerging; the right mix of both is difficult

Most of the migration is internal displacement (an estimated 1.7 million in 2012); recently a large influx of migrants from CAR

Coming out of Conflict and Political Transition Agriculture and food security are not priority issues; in fact agriculture is

grossly neglected with less than 2% of the government budget going to it, despite Maputo

Recently the budget for agriculture is increasing (3% for agriculture; 3% for rural development) after signing the CAADP compact in 2012

Most agricultural support provided by donors The security situation, consolidating the state (sovereignty expenditures

(presidency); the army, justice, democratic process, public finance) and rehabilitating infrastructure priorities

But institutions remain very weak (chronic state failure) and are frequently put into question (lack of tradition)

Food imports soar (over 1.3 billion $/year), especially because there isno real foreign exchange constraint

The DRC has many of the characteristics of an oil exporter because of minerals and oil exports which are increasing rapidly

Food imports are bulky and low quality, very cheap calorie richfoods (cereals, animal protein, fats) such as kappa meat, offals, layer chickens, buffalo meat (India), old stocks of rice and wheat

Nutrition is not seen as a priority; is never mentioned as an issue despite large under and malnutrition; eating enough calories isthe main challenge; health equally not seen as a priority

In agriculture, quick gains through improved seeds, hand toolsand tractors dominate; agricultural research and extension and rural finance not seen as a priority

Rural feeder roads rehabilitation and maintenance a tremendouschallenge, absorbing large amounts of donor aid

Agricultural statistics totally neglected (people do not eat data!), but still everybody uses such (phantom) data

The worst hunger and nutrition indicators (GH index, food securityindexes) in the world do not raise political alarms; nobody believesthese (foreign) indicators

The MICS (Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey) sponsored by UNICEF, USAID, WHO, etc. is the most important source of health, nutrition and food security information

Export crops which require longer term investments are neglected and are not a government priority (as there is no real foreign exchange constraint), e.g. large imports of palm oil

Private sector investments in export crops, despite the huge potential, are minimal because of investment risk (conflict, risk of expropriation, unsure land tenure), the overall negative investment climate (cfr. DoingBusiness index) and lack of infrastructure

Rainforest deforestation and REDD+ emerging as critical issues, requiring agricultural intensification

In Conclusion DRC faces one of the most complex and protracted humanitarian crises

in the world, particularly in the east and northeast of the country Chronic vulnerability to recurring shocks (armed groups, natural

disasters, epidemics, acute malnutrition) is a reality for much of the population

Building community resilience is a huge challenge, especially the capacity building; what are the best practices?

Communities reliance on humanitarian/emergency aid, especially in the East of the country, prevents an easy transition to longer term durable development

The links between humanitarian and development sectors must bestrengthened; how to do this?

Most donors are used to short-term responses to long term problems; a longer term approach focused on building context-appropriatecommunity resilience against vulnerability is needed but proves difficult