in this series I will share some of my experience with the McCain Insitute of the Arizona State University where I am currently part of the Next Generation Leaders program that seeks to connect and empower principled and ethical leaders from around the globe.
The following is an extract of my application interview conducted in Feb 2013:
McCain Institute: Tell us about your current activities towards addressing a challenge (political, economic, cultural, environmental, etc.) facing your community. What are you seeking to achieve? How can a year of professional development best help you in achieving your goals? If applicable, include a timeline for your project and identify key stakeholders or organizations that could help you implement it.
Soraya: When one looks at Lake Tanganyika between Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), one will see la little peninsula from the eastern flank of the DRC streching toward the western flank of Tanzania and Burundi… that is Ubwari, and that is where I am from. I am a development specialist, working as the Community Relations Manager for the only mining company that dared to invest in the Kivu province. My main task is to minimize the adverse impact of the Company presence in the communities where it operates, and maximize the potential benefits that exist. On a day to day basis I advise our Vice Presidents on the policies and strategies on resettlement programs, artisanal miners repositioning in alternative livelihood, I negotiate with the community their social development plans based on their needs and aspiration and align them with the National development goals as well as our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). I have received a national award for the work I do with local communities. The Company I work for has been tagged by UNDP as having the best CSR program of the province.
As I do my job, I come across many stakeholders, including Civil Society organisations, local and international NGO, the Government representatives, local businesses and scholars. They all have various approaches and strategies for the Congo and how to bring about development, particularly in the most affected Kivu regions. Some have laid out development plans that suits foreign donors goals, some try to develop themselves using their offices and power, some exploit the local communities by organising monopolies and racket, some are completely out of touch with the reality and can’t go beyond analysing and explaining the problems… But that is just ‘some’ of them.
Some others are actually interested in changing things for the best; create conditions for Human Development to take place. They go beyond their personal interests and actually focus on sustainable development for the local communities. They mobilise people around a vision and create the conditions to materialise it. These are the people who give me courage and the necessary hope to believe that we can indeed change things, bring an end to the suffering and create all the conditions for Human Development, namely : Food, Shelter, Security and opportunities.
One of the adverse impacts of a mining company into a community is the destruction of houses and fields. This impact is addressed and managed through a resettlement program and provision of alternative lands. This is how we act on bringing about food and shelter for Human development.
On food: The South Kivu alone has the potential to feed the entire Congo. This potential comes in form of vast and fertile land, enough manpower and appropriate climate providing enough rainfall and adequate temperature to grow local tubercles, cereals, vegetables and fruit; enough grazing land to feed cattle and small livestock. Some argue that security remains an issue for industrial productivity in the agricultural sector. While this is only partially true (the war is somehow much localised). One of the biggest challenges faced by local communities is lack of knowledge and support from the government departments.
Through our community development programs we have regrouped some farmers in agricultural cooperatives, we thought them improved farming methods, built their business management skills and helped them market their products and develop distribution channels. The farmers we work with produce up to ten times what they used to produce before and the food price in these communities has gone down, saving many poor families from malnourishment and starvation. People have converted from other professions into farming as they could see the benefits.
On Shelter: The resettlement program managed by the CR department has resettled 450 households to date, and will resettle another 250 this year. Resettling households is not just about building better houses and moving “affected persons” into them. It comes with the challenge of preserving the social fabric that holds families together and that can be destroyed when you take them away from their neighbours, their traditional authorities, and bring them in a new agglomeration where they will have to learn a new way of life, with people they didn’t know but who share their fate. This challenge includes bringing people from a rural-traditional life into a semi urban way of living: Participating in the creation and establishment of a new leadership in the village, facing together challenges of land accessibility, access roads, water, and sanitation, communal infrastructures like churches, schools, and healthcentres, planting trees as part of the environment preservation and firewood etc. Economic displacement and resettlement faces the same challenges as those displaced by disasters such as floods, famines or war, and have to build a new home away from home and may become one of the most widespread program as soon as complete peace returns in the Kivu.
We face these challenges together with the local communities and work hand in hand with the Government, traditional authorities and other organisations. Because the Company cannot bear the costs of taking care of these communities forever, we make sure that we create sustainable way for the community to become autonomous and to integrate their new life in the smoothest possible way. We also make sure that these communities thrive and become models that can be replicated by other institutions that seek to create similar development in the regions where we operate.
On security and opportunity: There is a chicken-and-egg debate about what comes first between economic development on one hand and peace and security on the other hand. I have my own answer on this, based on what I have observed along the National Road number 5 (N5) in the southern part of the South Kivu in the DRC.
The only way to access the Namoya project on the northern tip of the Maniema province was either through the 400m airstrip maintained by the explorationdivision of the mine, or the 420km road through the Lake Tanganyika shore, the rocky hills of Fiziand the equatorial forest through Kilembwe. It took 2 weeks with a 4X4 or two to three months with a truck to make the journey. This road passes 5 km from Ubwari, the little enclavedpeninsula where I come from. In August 2011, the N5 looked more like a pathway and it required a lot of faith (and fertile imagination) to plan moving a 40ft container through it. On top of it, attacks by negative forces were very common and people had traded their hospitality reputation for a ferocious protectionism managed through a cruel militia known as Mai Mai/Yakutumba. Nobody, even the UN went to visit them and discuss their needs. “Too dangerous” was the answer when we asked the Monusco to come with us on a due diligence mission.
With courage and tenacity the mine decided to inject $6M to upgrade the road from what it was then to a two way road that would carry trucks with 25T containers containing parts of the plant and the equipment needed to build the Namoyamine. In just 3 month we were able to drive the 420km in two days by 4X4 and 4 days by truck (with 12 hours stop overs). The Army was able to deploy troops and ensure a continuous supply of food, ammunition and other consumables they needed. The return of peace encouraged militiamen to convert from their security duties to agricultural activities and commerce. Today all security reports on this road mention an unexpected improvement of the security situation with almost no attack on convoys or villages neighbouring the road. People from Ubwari village now supply fresh products to communities, sometimes more than 150km from where they are harvested.I am proud to have been part of this project (On the Stakeholders engagement side). This piece of road did not only bring security to the people but gave them the opportunity to choose how they want to live their lives, in the village or traveling, in agricultural activities or commerce. It also brought the state authority closer to the people, it enabled development institutions and organisations to access the villagers that needed them the most. This piece of road brought in economic and human development.
To answer the Chiken-and-egg debate on economy or peace, I would say that from a certain level of relative security, economic opportunity must be seized to consolidate the frail peace by creating growth that involves the people and gives them the mean and choice to convert from the usual perpetrator-victim relations to more useful activities for themselves and their communities. With roads, little communities like Ubwari have the opportunity to sustain peace and foster a fast tract economic development. As Roosevelt put it in 1940: It is not our wealth that gave us our roads, it is our roads that gave us out wealth.
My experience with Banro has been very practical and has taught me so much about communities and development. However, Banro only works with affected parties, people whose lives have been disrupted because of the mine activities. Other Congolese continue to suffer extreme poverty and will not benefit from the CSR activities we carry. My goal is to move beyond Banro and implement economic and human development projects that will benefit all the Congolese of the Eastern Congo. This can be achieved through consultancy or advocacy to key stakeholders, and efficient coordination of all economic and human development initiatives in the region.
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