The disentrapment of North Kivu
As a prelude to the disentrapment of the whole of:
The Great Lakes region of Central Africa
Le Projet DEPKIV - Le Depiègage de Nord Kivu
A project a project proposal for Oxfam and Merlin
The aftermath of disaster is a great development opportunity, advances can often be made then, which would be impossible at any other time”
Carl Taylor, Professor Emeritus of International Health,
Johns Hopkins University.
Background. In August of 2003 I was invited to lecture in Kinshasa in French on Pieges Demographiques au Congo? (demographic traps in the Congo) at a meeting of SANRU (Sante Rurale), at which more than 60 Medicins Chefs du Zone (doctors in charge of health zones) where present. It had been the opinion of the organisers that there is no demographic entrapment in Congo, but that it was high time that the Government started to think about it. However, both the health zones that I have been able to visit - Vanga and North Kivu - are clearly trapped.
An urgent request to the UN agencies. The main message of my talk was that the government should say to the UN agencies: "What is this demographic entrapment which we hear about? Can you advise us?" This - if any government ever does it - would lift the tabooo on demographic entrapment at a stroke. The government of the Congo has not yet done this, but at least the foundations of such a request have been laid.
Figure 1. A population density map of Africa. Note the very high population densities in the Great Lakes region of Central Africa. North Kivu lies on the North West edge of this highly populated zone. The Belgian administration were worried about its high population densities, but less so than for Rwanda.
Figure 2. An enlargement of Figure 1. Note that North Kivu just extends into the rain forest zone.
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There was no sign of a taboo, or of any ill-feeling whatever - and great interest in les Demons! After my lecture a most charming man, Dr Kasonia Kizito, Medicin Chef de Musienene in North Kivu, more or less through his arms round my neck, and implored me to visit a his zone which is part of the province of North Kivu on the extreme eastern edge of the Congo, bordering Uganda.
North Kivu is difficult to get to, since political difficulties prevent any scheduled airline from flying into the Congo from Uganda. However, once I had arrived I was welcomed with open arms - especially by L'Universite Adventiste de Lukanga (Campus Wallace) - the "Harvard" of those parts. Almost every day and I had to show for my French power points on entrapment, at some universite or institute superieure, including two seminaries. There was great interest, no taboo, and no ill feeling of any kind. Nor was there any doubt that North Kivu is trapped!
This project is anxious to find an immediate partner and pointe focale - Oxfam or Merlin have been suggested - with whom it can work in its search for more substantial funds over a longer period, in an endeavour which - ideally - needs to extend to the disentrapment of the Great Lakes Region of Central Africa as a whole - if indeed Jack Caldwell is correct - see.unfortunately, Oxfam's principal adviser is so Richard Jolly - who - incredibly -denies that entrapment is possible! See
What might be achieved and learnt here in North Kivu might well be replicated elsewhere. Since, in the Congo there is no taboo on the discussion of entrapment - whateve might be the hangups elsewhere - it is therefore of the greatest urgency that it be put into operation without a moment’s delay.
4 War and security
North Kivu has suffered gravely from the entrapment of its neighbour,
Rwanda, where intense population pressure was a major factor in the genocide of 1994, and the mass exodus of a million Rwandans (Tutsis and Hutus) into the neighbouring Congo. They have now mostly since returned, and with even a modest MONUC (Militaire Organisations Nations Unies Congolais) presence, most of the region is - for the present at least - stable. There is little risk, apart from the inadvisability of travelling by night close to the borders of the national park which bandits share with the remains of the wild life, and the advisability of always carrying a little money with which to buy off hungry unpaid soldiers when one is stopped on the road.
Since it is unreasonable to wait for ever for perfect peace, we recommend a vigorous immediate start to projet DEPKIV. As Carl Taylor has said (see above) - the aftermath of war is a great opportunity for change.
Ecology and historyNorth Kivu lies on the equator on the eastern boundary of the Congo. Its capital is Goma, at its southern tip. The hills of North Kivu slope down from the Rwenzori mountains westwards towards La Cuvette, part of which is also in North Kivu. This is the sparsely inhabited rain forest area of the central Congo basin which was once a huge lake, before it drained away into the sea through a gorge where Kinshasa now is.
North Kivu has many features in common with the rest of the Great Lakes Region - Rwanda, Burundi, and the Kigezi district of Uganda, notably very high population densities. In 1993 Andre [4] found 787 people to the square kilometre in Kanama in the Gisenyi prefecture in Rwanda, and these densities are likely to be similar in parts of North Kivu. These very high densities are the result of the very high fertility of the soil, a bimodal rainfall and an altitude of 1,500 - 2,000 metres which renders the region largely free of malaria. There comes a point however when the carrying capacity even of the most fertile soils is reached, and it seems likely that the whole Great Lakes Region is demographically trapped. The Belgian administration had long considered Rwanda trapped [3] and had prepared a mathematical model which had predicted a population crash in the middle 1990s (the time of the genocide). For North Kivu the model predicted a similar population crash in 2020 - it is the prevention of this crash which is the concern of this project!
Butembo grew up around a long defunct gold mine established in 1920. It is a vast village of great charm with nearly half a million people. It is several kilometres in diameter, has few buildings of more than one story, only intermittent electricity and water, and no tarred roads . It is almost entirely peopled by the Nande who have a great reputation for enterprise and hard work. Deprived of any assistance both by the Belgian administration and by the Mobutu Government, it has had to rely on itself, hence its great tradition of self-reliance, and its reputation for commercial enterprise. Its grande commercants trade coffee, gold, and chincona to Mombasa in the east, and vegetables, particularly beans and potatoes to Kasangani in the west, thence by river to Kinshasa. North Kivu is thus a modest net exporter of food. Without any international assistance, these commercants are making an international airport at Butembo and are installing a new hydroelectric plant.
.Is North Kivu trapped, and if so how severely?
Belgian anxieties about the population of the Great Lakes region of Central Africa go back to 1929. {118} In 1986 they published a mathematical model forcasting future population and the availability of food - Le Kivu Montagneux: surpopulation, sousnutritioin, erosion du sol, etude prospective par simulations mathematiques. {120} This forecast a population crash for Rwanda in the middle 1990s, and a similar one for North Kivu in 2020.Political events since independence have not made data collection easy. However the very title of the 1986 study by Wils and others sums up the situation ominously - Le Kivu Montagneux : surpopulation, sous nutrition..., as does the mathematical simulation in Figure 2 that it contains. [3] This is amply confirmed by the photographs of North Kivu from the air, taken on the approach to Butembo from the south, and from the ground when leaving it by car eastwards for Uganda. These show extensive cultivation on steep slopes, hardly a hectare of uncultivated land, and barely any trace of the original forest, which has been almost entirely replaced by eucalyptus grown largely for fuel.
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Figure 6. An aerial view approaching Butembo from the south. Cultivated areas are climbing up steep slopes, and there is little of the original forest left.
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Figure 7. About 50 kilometres east of Butembo, near the summit of the escarpment. There is no uncultivated land, and very few indigenous trees. There are many bananas.
Figure 4 Land near Masureka Wherever I went the problem was the same. There was hardly a tree of the original forest left. All the trees, such as those you see in thr right hand corner, were eucalyptus planted for firewood.
The district of Masereka is said to have the worst entrapment. This is 20 km from the Ugandan border - see Figures 17- 20 on the CD Rom Powerpoint presentation - Piège demographique au Nord Kivu. Land is now so scarce in this region that people are attacking one another with machetes, and are burning each other’s villages to such an extent that a permanent police presence is now required. Each family now has only one tiny plot of land -see the figure.
The result is that 92% of the children are stunted, and 3.6% of them acutely malnourished - the figure had been 10% before a recent Save the Children Fund initiative. How far population displacement by war may have contributed to this is not known.
Although Masereka may have the worst reputation for the intense pressure of population on land, it appears to be only a little ahead of much of the rest of North Kivu, and on a par with the Great Lakes region of Central Africa has a whole, of which the most tragic example is Rwanda with its entrapment associated genocide.
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Population densities and violence. In the upland areas, there is acute shortage of land. The most notable evidence of this is that population densities in the district of Masureka, on the Ugandan border, had recently reached such extreme levels that people have been burning each other's villages, to such an extent that a permanent police presence is required to keep order in the district. Since the area is uniformly in nande, inter-tribal conflict is not responsible. The problem is lack of land. In this area each family has one 'parcelle' or plot of land - one of the rectangles shown in Figure 4. The soil is volcanic and fertile, so that it two, or even three, crops can be harvested a year, but even the most fertile soils have their limits.
It is not certain what population densities are in Masureka Zone de Sante. To have reach this level of community violence, they may well have reached 6 persons to the hectare - the level found by Catherine Andre for the Kanama cellule in Rwanda in 1993. {180}. Dr Kizito says that for his Zone de Sante of Musienene, which borders Masureka - and where violence has not yet broken out - there are 96,000 peopl in 2000 square kilometres. This gives it a population density of 0.98 persons to the hectare.A third of this, or 700 square kilometres is uninhabited - and perhaps uninhabitable - rainforest. Excluding the rainforest, its population density rises to 1.5 people/ha. It seems likely that population densities are very variable in the area, and that only in Masureka have they - as yet ! - reached the violence level.
Population densities are not easily judged from Figure 3, because there is not of a hut or a person to be seen. This is because villages are commonly built on ridges, as in Figure 4, where the huts of what was once a village have been but.
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Figure 5. The former village of Ngumbe - but as a result of the violence of entrapment. These people are standing on the ruins of a hut which was burnt eight months previously, when neighbouring villagers burnt one another's huts for lack of land. After eight months, this is all that remains. Dr Kasonia Kizito is on the right, holding a fragment of cooking pot. Arrows point to the ruins of other burnt out huts.
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Entrapment and disentrapment - ‘depiègage’.
Although the term ‘demographic entrapment’ was first used by development economists in the 1950s , [2] it has hitherto been tightly taboo to demographers, development economists, and to the UN agencies who have never discussed it - whatever might be the private opinion of the continent’s most eminent demographer - see above. However, since entrapment is being freely discussed in the institutes superieurs of North Kivu, including most particularly L’Université Adventiste de Lukanga (Campus Wallace) without any ill feeling, THIS PROJECT SUBMISSION ASSUMES THAT THE TABOO ON DISCUSSING ENTRAPMENT NO LONGER EXISTS ANYWHERE! A full account of just why entrapment has been so taboo can be found on the disentrapment website. [1]
A community is demographically trapped if :
(1) It exceeds the carrying capacity of its local ecosystem - too many people for the land to support,
and (2) there is no possibility of adequate migration - nowhere for them to go,
and (3) the economy produces too few exports with which to purchase food and other essentials.
The end-results of entrapment are the direst poverty, stunting, starvation and violence.
A community is also trapped, if because its population is increasing rapidly, it is expected to be in this unhappy situation before long.
Correspondingly, disentrapment - ‘depiègeage’ - could theoretically be achieved by reversing these constraints. Assisting migration, and lowering human fertility are the most practical measures and are discussed below. The remaining possibilities are:
●Increasing the carrying capacity of the ecosystem. Volcanic uplands soils are very fertile already. However, there maybe he case for the import of heavily subsidised fertiliser on other soils. Agricultural practices could doubtless be improved, but the scope for doing this seems unlikely to be adequate for disentrapment when population pressure on land is already so intense.
● Economic development sufficiently fast to produce the exports necessary to exchange for the food required by an already hungry and rapidly growing population. This again seems unlikely to be practicable.HIV prevalence is less than 10% and so has little demographic effect.
7 ‘Depiègage’ - lowering human fertility
The most alarming aspect of demographic entrapment in Butembo is the demographic momentum resulting from a total fertility of 6.7 children per mother. If every female were to instantly have two children only from now on the population would about triple! This means that severe or even moderate entrapment theoretically requires 1-child families - unless something exceptional can be done to assist migration. The full implications of a demographic momentum of this magnitude are too little understood - anywhere.
It might seem that it is quite out of the question to even think about 1-child families in Africa. However, the dialogue on 1-child families can open in Malawi and Uganda, [1] and the interest already being taken in this project, shows that it is beginning to open in North Kivu. How far it will get is another matter. It is not proposed to discuss 1-child families further here, except to emphasise the extreme importance of encouraging fertility to fall as fast and as far as possible. Whatever may be the message to the community - at the moment - les intellectuels should know that they may be necessary. During the lectures mentioned in Section 1, this possibility was made clear. The view of the extreme pressure of population on land, and of the ecological constraints on migration to the rain forest, it could be that 1-child families are needed now.
Since the Contraceptive Prevalence Rate for modern methods is less than 0.5% in the rural areas, the first requirement for disentrapment is a family planning programme of massive proportions and intensity. At this stage, the project proposal only outlines the very beginnings of this - a family planning instructor for the training of trainers, - ‘la formation des formateurs’ - contraceptives supplies, suitable training materials in French, and funds for starting community education - mostly over the radio, and through the Churches. The ‘formateurs’ will be the district medical officers (doctors), and the infirmiers superviseuse (nurse supervisers). It is urged that a start be made with this with the greatest possible urgency and without delay - as evidence of immediate interest, and that something is being done - see below in Section 11.
North Kivu is 90% Catholic. The attitude of the Catholic heirarchy is therefor crucial. The early signs are that, now that the reality of entrapment is becoming apparant, its cooperation in the use of the modern family planning methods necessary for disentrapment will follow. For how it is to be educated - see Section 11.
Fgure An FAO diagram showing soil productivity under various methods of cultivation. Although the soil type is tnot specified, it is presumed to be forest, probably rainforest, for which a 20 year cycle is required, as in the next figure.
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Figure 8. Global Ecological Zones. North Kivu straddles two ecological zones. Its Eastern edge is dry tropical forest (brown). Its western edge is wet tropical rainforest. This is the dark purple area of the Congo and Amazon basins.
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Masereka and migration to the rainforest. The health zone of Musienene straddles the border between the wet rain forest (shown purple in Figure 5) and the dry tropical forest, shown brown in that figure. If villagers from Masereka want to reach the largely uninhabited wet rain forest, they have a hundred kilometres to walk
8 ‘Depiègage’ - assisted migration to the rain forest of ‘La Cuvette’.
Several NGOs, notably MARIFA, are already engaged in assisting migration. The nearest uncultivated land is the central rainforest area of “La cuvette”. Apart from a few pygmies, this is largely uninhabited. The reason why it remains uninhabited is that it is not well suited to permanent agriculture, the reason being that its very high rainfall rapidly washes the calcium and potassium out of the soil, which leaves it very acid and unresponsive to inorganic fertiliser. The lime that would correct this acidity is scarce in Africa. Unless there is a 20 years’ cycle, with two years of cultivation, followed by 18 years of fallow, so as to allow the roots of trees to bring up nutrients from deeper levels, the land uses all its fertility. The result is the tragic man-made desert now characteristic of parts of the Amazon, and which is already starting to be seen in parts of the rain forest of La Cuvette also. The only hope of cultivating it sustainably is therefor to distribute migrants very thinly, so as to allow the necessary period of 18 years of fallow.
There are differing reports as to whether there is still unused land which is not rainforest in the north-east corner of the Congo, in Upper Zaire and in the Ulele provinces. If there is, it will be better agriculturally, but more difficult logistically, since it is further away. This alternative needs to be looked into further.
If there has to be migration into an already inhabited, but sparsely populated area, it is essential at that this be a gradual process, so as to allow at the gradual acceptance of the new migrants into the local community. To a small extent villagers are already migrating spontaneously to ‘La Cuvette’. This requires walking 100 km, cutting down the trees, burning them, planting crops, and building a hut. When there is something to eat, and somewhere to live, the rest of the family can follow. Permanent migration requires several journeys over several years.
A newly established rainforest community requires roads, schools, and clinics. There is no malaria in the upland areas from which migrants come, so they arrive in La Cuvette with no immunity and need their malaria treating, until such time as they have built up a useful degree of immunity. For this, clinic services are essential.
8a The quantification of disentrapmentTwo methods of disentrapment are proposed - reducing fertility, and assisting migration. How much of each he is necessary, and how fast? It is not proposed to answer this. Instead, it is suggested that a local research officer should be appointed to study all aspects of the disentrapment process, especially this one, and that he do this work for submission as a PhD. A highly suitable applicant is available in the person of Sébastian Lambert Kasereka Mbahweka, presently Permanent Assistant, and acting Vice Dean of the Faculty at L’Université Adventiste de Lukanga (Campus Wallace). He will need 3 months to learn English. It is suggested that he apply to do his PhD at the Institute of Development Studies in Sussex, and that Oxfam approach the British Council for a scholarship on his behalf.
9 The Project area and its staffThe province of Nord Kivu has 3.5 million people, and is divided into 2 areas - Grande Nord (2 territoires) and Petit Nord (5 territoires), each 1.7 million people. On the Plan sanitaire Grande Nord has two health districts. Butembo District has Musienene, Lubero, Manguredjipa, and Kayna. Beni Distict has Beni, Kyondo, Mutwanga and Oicha.
There are 4 districts sanitaires, 19 zones de sante, 9 in Le pool de Goma, and 10 in Le pool de Butembo.
There are 20 hospitals, 353 health centres, 91 doctors, 27 AG, 308 infermiers A1, 1870 A2, 597 A3.‘Partenaires’. CEMUBAC (3 zones), ASRAMES, FD (2 zones), and SANRU (Sante Rurale, 5 zones) a health support system financed by USAID.
‘Intervenants’ - NGOs. WV, Save the Children Fund UK, MDM, CICR, Medicins Sans Frontiers Holland, Merlin, OXFAM Great Britain, Ami Kivu, SODERU,
10 Administrative arrangements
North Kivu has 19 health zones. This submission is signed by two Chefs du Zone - those of Butembo and Musienene. The provincial authorities have however been kept fully informed, and their participation together with the other Chefs du zone, can be assumed.
Although The Ministry of Health in Kinshasa has been informed, it will be a great convenience if administrative arrangements can be made directly with the territorial council in Lubero, since`communication with Kinshasa nearly 800 miles away is difficult, with no post and no land telephone lines. The contact person is Dr Kasonia Kizito, mobile phone 00243 9854 8598 and email kasoniakizito@yahoo.fr11 The first - practical - steps, making a modest - immediate - beginning
Whatever might be said about the disadvantages of assisting migration towards an ecosystem which is usually considered unsuitable for permanent agriculture, the same cannot be said about reducing fertility.
It is therefor suggested that Oxfam should:
●Send an immediate consignment of family planning supplies to North Kivu as an indication of its immediate interest in its disentrapment. It is suggested that a start be made in the health zone of Lubero.
● Send the necessary communication equipment to Dr Kasonia Kizito so that the lectures and debate started by Dr King can continue. There is urgent need for a laptop computer, a “beamer”[ Powerpoint projector, Hewlett Packard xb31], and a digital camera. These are particularly necessary for the education of the Roman Catholic Church and it is important that they arrive as soon as possible, so that the educational momentum started by Dr King should not be lost.
A machine translation of a recent email from Dr Kizito reads like this. “....For the moment, we are arranging the text of your conferences, but we are handicapped to present the explanations at the authorities and the religious decision makers, owing to the fact that we do not have a beamer [projector] and that it is not easy to explain without seeing the Powerpoint. Then, we took the option to ask you to seek us [one] like yours, in urgency, while waiting to have some perhaps in the project of dépiegeage which you have. ... One needs small a beamer like yours to be able to easily move it in various rooms of conference. Indeed, if we wait too long time before passing to sensitizing political decision makers, we will lose the advantages create by your passage and it will be difficult for us to pass the message when everyone forgets your passage....”
●Send a francophone staff member to North Kivu: (a) To meet with the newly-formed “ Council for... depiègeage...” - see Section 12. (b) To confirm the substance of this report. (c) To visit those areas of rainforest where migration is already taking place. (d) To assess its ecological implications. (e) To visit and observe the work of those NGOs (MARIFA, etc) who are already trying to assist migration to the rain forest.
●Look for an expert francophone family planning instructor for la formation des formateurs - the training of trainers. Ideally this person should be in place within 3 months, and be prepared to stay two years. No such person is currently available in Kivu. It is proposed that the instructor be based in Butembo. The Mauritius Institute of Health (Google finds it) might be a good place to start looking for such a person.
The family planning instructor needs to develop and test - with outside help - a 2 week model course for plannification familiale au niveau du depiègeage, after the pattern of the highly successful one that WHO has developed for the formation des formateurs in breast feeding, and which is now being implemented worldwide.
It is intended that the family planning input be given through the existing health services, rather than in a separate series of clinics. It would be useful if the ‘Marie Stopes’ expertise could be incorporated throughout the health service, and its active collaboration sought.
●Provide teaching materials on entrapment and family planning in French. The only book which contains both been an integrated manner is Primary Mother Care and Population, edited by Glen Mola, and published without copyright or profit by “Maurice King Knowledge Engineer”, 400 pages, 650 illustrations. This got four stars (the maximum) in its review in The BMJ. Marie Stopes International wants it distributed to all its clinics. Adaptation should begin with a machine translation into French, and Congolese examples incorporated.
!Ask the British Council if it could provide a scholarship for a PhD student to study the disentrapment process and write his thesis on it - see Section 11 above.
!Start negotiations with the European Union for a much wider disentrapment initiative, not only in North Kivu, but in other parts of the Great Lakes region also.
Administrative arrangements (Translated from French)
The territorial council concerned with migration and the peaceful resolution
of demographic problems (Depiègage - disentrapment)
Congo Democratic republic Province of North KivuREGULATIONS
PreambleThe Territory of LUBERO, as represented by its Administrator, chiefs and other community leaders, together with its NGOs concerned with demographic problems (MAARIFA, CLUB, RMIP, ADIM.....), hereby announce that:
●They are determined to proceed with the demographic disentrapment of the territory of Lubero with its population of about a million people.
●They are much concerned by the grave land conflicts that are caused by the excessively high population density in the territory.
● They have are aware that these land conflicts have now reached the point at which villagers are burning one anothers villages.
● They have noted that the west of the territory (the region of La Cuvette) is almost uninhabited and very undeveloped.
● They have decided to create a government body with in the administrative structure of the territory called: “The territorial council for the management of migration and the peaceful settlement of demographic problems (disentrapment)”. This organization has will be directed by the Chief Administrator for Demographic Problems in the Territory of Lubero.SECTION I: TITLE - NAME - SEAT -OBJECTIVE - DURATION
Article 01: There shall be created in Democratic Republic of Congo, in the Territory of LUBERO, an Organization called: The Territorial Council for the Management of Migration and the Peaceful Settlement of Demographic problems (disentrapment).
Article 02: The registered office of the organization shall the in ubero the capital of the territory, although meetings can be held anywhere and particularly in Butembo.
Article 03: The purpose of the Organization is:
●To decide on and organise the necessary steps for the peaceful resolution of demographic problems.
● To co-ordinate the work of all NGOs concerned with family planning, migration, and the economic resettlement of migrants.
●To gather migrants under the supervision of chiefs.
●To coordinate the peaceful integration of migrants in their new communities.
● To actively seek the partners who are concerned with migration and the resolution of demographic problems.
● To channel the actions of these partners towards the local NGOs who are already concerned with migration.
!To plan health services, including family planning, for the migrant communities.
Article 04: The organization shall have an unspecified duration. It is to carry on its activities in Beni and Lubero particularly, but is to extend them to North Kivu and to the rest of the Congo with the minimum of delay.
Article 05: The Organization is empowered to deal with outside NGOs interested in the resolution of the demographic problems.SECTION II: MEMBERS
Article 06: The Organization shall comprise: The the Chief Administrator of the territory and any of his officials when necessary, the paramount chief and his sub-chiefs, the Médecins Chefs des Zones, the Chief Agronomist of the territory, the Veterinary Surgeon of the territory, the NGOs concerned with the resolution of demographic problems (MAARIFA, RMIP, SYDIP, etc.), and any other suitable persons were necessary.
SECTION III: CONSTITUENTS
Article 07: The Organization is made up of the following bodies: The Territorial Council.The Council’s secretariat.
The Executive Secretariat. The Audit BoardSECTION IV: THE TERRITORIAL COUNCIL
Article 08: The Territorial Council shall comprise all the members listed in Art 6. It shall be known as: “ The territorial council for the management of migration and the peaceful settlement of demographic problems (disentrapment). It shall meet in ordinary session once a quarter, and in extraordinary session whenever necessary.
Article 09: A session of the Territorial Council can take place only when the 2/3 of its members are present. When a quorum is not reached, the session is deferred for one month. The invitations shall then be are then sent out again by the Council Secretariat, with all the members cationed to attend, particularly those who missed the deferred session.
Article 10: If within this time, a quorum is not reached at the date envisaged, the Territorial Council shall meet and make anyway
Article 11: The office of this Council is composed in the following way: A President acting as regulator. A Vice President drawn alternately from among the Council of Chiefs. Two rapporteurs
Article 12: The role of the Territorial Council is: To Approve the Agenda established by its Secretariat and elaborated by its Executive. To approve the reports submitted by the Secretariat. To debate and accept the budget. To issue the directives, decisions and recommendations which comprise a register of the activities of the Council.
To come to a conclusion about various questions (dossiers) submitted to it particularly regarding problems incurred in the field by the NGOs in their work (land, schools, roads, etc.) To issue technical guidelines as necessary.
Article 13: Each NGO involved in the problem of dépiégeage, shall retain its legal personality and its modes of working in the field. The same applies to the Zones de Santé which have tasks of their own.SECTION V: THE EXECUTIVE SECRETARIAT
Article 14: The Executive Secretariat is made up as follows: A President Representing the territorial Council. A Secretary. A treasurer. Three Advisers recruited from among NGOs working in Lubero.
Article 15: The Executive Secretariat, is responsible for the daily work of the Organization. It implements the decisions of the Territorial Council. It manages the finances and administers the organization. It involves the Council, and third parties, within the limits of its capacities. It represents the Council, in regard to justice, administration and finances and does whatever is necessary to promote the the interests and the objectives of the organization.
Article 16: The mandate of the Executive Secretariat is 5 years renewable.SECTION VI: THE AUDIT BOARD
EXTERNAL AUDIT the Audit Board shall be comprised of external auditors, recruited as necessary.
INTERNAL AUDIT This shall be made up of two permanent members chosen by the Territorial Council from among the finance officers. They are to be responsible both for the of management of finances within the council and by all organisations to whom it gives money.SECTION VII: SUPERVISION
Article 17: The territorial council for the management of migration and the peaceful settlement of demographic problems (disentrapment) is placed under the supervision of the Administrator Chief of territory of Lubero, in Province of Kivu North, democratic République of Congo.
SECTION VIII: GENERAL PROVISIONS
Article 18: At the end of each year the Organization shall present a report to the Chief Administrator of the territory. This report is to give an account of all the problems encountered in the course of the year, the work of the organization, all relevant matters relating to migration, conditions in the Zones de Santé , and all the activities of the NGOs concerned with demographic dépiégeage. The report shall also take account of the work of international partners in demographic dépiégeage.
SECTION IX: MODIFICATIONS
Article 19: The articles of the organisation are to be reviewed each year and adapted to the evolving situation. For this to take place a quorum shall be three-quarters of the members.
Article 20: The organization shall remain in accord with the administrative hierarchy and policies of the Province.Signed at Lubero, APRIL 02, 2004
Getting there - problems of communication
Reaching Butembo. Relations between the central government in Kinshasa and Uganda remain difficult, to the point of not allowing the main carrier up and down the eastern border of the Congo, the airline TMK (Transporst et Messageries de Kivu), permission to fly directly from Entebbe into any of the airports of the Congo. Meanwhile TMK flies its Twin Otter up and down the eastern border of the Congo from Bunia in the north to Bujumbura (in Burundi) in the South. Direct flights from Entebbbe into North Kivu have therefore to be by private charter, by MAF (Mission Air Fellowship) or by hitching a lift from Kampala with a MONUC flight.
There are however international flights into Kigali and Bukavu. From Kigali in Rwanda, it is easy to take a bus to Gisenyi , cross the border into Kivu at Goma and then take a TMK flight up to Butembo, there are two flights a week in one direction or the other.
By far the easiest - and cheapest - route is overland by bus from Kampala to Kasindi and then by shared taxi to Butembo via Beni - about an 11 hour journey, including an hour at the border for customs formalities. There is also a direct route from Kasindi to Butembo, which avoids the northwards loop through Beni altogether. However, the road is worse, and since it goes through the park it is potentially more dangerous. The journey is probably more easily arranged in the Butembo - Kasindi direction, than vice versa.
Bring an official invitation and get an visa at the border - $35.
Post. There has been no postal service in the Congo since 1970. L’Universitè Adventiste de Lukanga, for example, relies on a post office box in Kampala (Box 6965) and clears it once a month.
Telephone. Although there are no land lines, there are two networks of mobile phones - Vodacom and Celtel with increasingly extensive coverage.
Internet. Butembo has two internet cafes. L’Universitè Adventiste de Lukanga, for example, is still entirely without an internet connection.
Other. There is no newspaper. There are 4 radio stations, the oldest only three years old, with programs in kinande and French.
References
[1] The disentrapment website. http://www.leeds.ac.uk/demographic.disentrapment. Alternatively ask Google to look for disentrapment.
[2] Liebenstein Harvey 1954 A theory of economic development. Princeton University Press.
[3] Carael M Tondeur G Vis HL Wils W. Le Kivu Montagneux: surpopulation, sousnutrition, erosion du sol, etude prospective par simulations mathematiques. Acad Roy Sci Outre-mer.Classse des Sciences Naturelles et medicales.Memoire in-8 Nouvelle Serie.Tome 21, Fasc 3.Brussssels 1986 Memoire in-8 Nouvelle Serie. Tome 21, Fasc 3.:1-201, 1986.
[4] Andre Catherine, Platteau Jean-Philippe. Land relations under unbearable stress: Rwanda caught in a Malthusian trap. Journal of Economic Behaviour and Organisation (1998); 34:1-47
