Could DRC’s Resource Wealth be the Key to Ending Its Conflicts too?

Jul 10, 2017 | Keith Slack
View Original

Africa watchers will know that the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is once again poised on the verge of violent conflagration.  How the country got there and how it might pull itself back from the brink are of keen interest to those of us who work on the “resource curse.” DRC’s pathways into violence, and likely out of it, are deeply connected to its vast mineral resources. Harnessing those resources for development, rather than empowering those who would rip the country apart, is DRC’s defining development challenge – one that implicates everyone with a stake in the country’s future: donor countries, mining companies, civil society, and of course the country’s citizens and government.

DRC’s current crisis stems from President Joseph Kabila’s defiance of the country’s constitution and failure to leave officeat the end of his term last year, and the foregoing of elections to choose his replacement.

In 2002, in an attempt to encourage post-war investment in the mining sector following the devastating Second Congo War – or what has been called  “Africa’s First World War” – the country, with the support of the World Bank, adopted a new mining code. The code established generous terms for investors in the sector.  The Kabila government rushed to sign contracts with mining multinationals.  The terms of these contracts were sharply questioned by civil society in DRC and internationally.  Finally in 2008, the government ordered a review of the contracts that were negotiated under the code.