05 10 13 AfricanArguments – Europe in the Congo: high ambitions, big money, limited impact

Today, seven years later, Europe has faded away in to the wings. Not
only has the European architecture suffered severe damage in the
different political, economic and financial storms that scourged the
Union, also other ambitious potential partners of Congo stepped into the
ring. China, of course, sits in first place with the multibillion
contract it offered the DRC in 2007. But also countries such as India,
Tanzania, South Africa and others rapidly gained visibility and
influence.

Audit

A few days ago, a report of the European Court of Auditors was
published which examined the EU support between 2003 (the start of the
transition after the end of the war) and 2011 (the re-election of
Kabila).  The EU’s assistance to Congo in that period was about 1.9
billion euro. The report focused particularly on EU support for the
electoral process, the justice and police and public finance management
reforms and the decentralisation process.

The judgment is harsh.  Two quotes from the report:

“The Court concludes that the effectiveness of EU assistance for
governance in the DRC is limited. EU support for governance is set
within a generally sound cooperation strategy, addresses the main needs
and has achieved some results. However, progress is slow, uneven and
overall limited. Fewer than half of the programmes examined have
delivered, or are likely to deliver, most of the expected results.
Sustainability is an unrealistic prospect in most cases.”

“The absence of political will, the donor-driven dynamics of the
programmes and the lack of absorption capacity account for these
failures. However, while the Commission is well acquainted with the main
causes and consequences of state fragility in the DRC , it did not take
sufficient account of these challenges when designing EU programmes.
Risks have not been adequately addressed, programme objectives tend to
be overly ambitious, conditionality has a weak incentive effect and
policy dialogue has not been exploited to its full potential and
adequately coordinated with EU Members.”

Ambiguity

The European Union did not fulfill its ambitions in the fields of
democracy and security. This was in part due to the ambiguity in the
signals they have sent concerning democratisation.

For example, the EU insists a great deal on the holding of elections,
but goes quite far in accepting non-democratic practices. This
behaviour is partially based on looking for a difficult balance between
the desire to really contribute to the development of democracy on the
one hand, and on the other hand concern about not damaging a stability
that is relative and precarious. The result is often a choice between
what is considered the lesser of two evils. Of course this pragmatism is
also based on a good understanding by each international player of its
own bilateral interests.  The ambiguity of the Congo’s Western partners
is well understood, both by political players in the region and the
local population.

If Europe wants to make a difference in security, democracy and
governance in Congo, it will have to ensure the credibility, quality and
transparency of the different processes and reforms it supports, and
not limit itself to the technocratic accompaniment of some formal
exercises.

Kris Berwouts has, over the last 25 years, worked for a
number of different Belgian and international NGOs focused on building
peace, reconciliation, security and democratic processes. Until
recently, he was the Director of EurAc, the network of European NGOs
working for advocacy on Central Africa. He now works as an independent
expert on Central Africa.