An uncertain road: Election time in DR Congo
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), recently characterised by ongoing political unrest and resource-driven civil wars, is approaching its second democratically displayed presidential and parliamentary elections. After many turbulences with regard to the independent national election commission (that shifted names from CEI to CENI) and issues concerning late and irregular registration of voters, the poll … Continue reading
Impressions from Goma and Bukavu
Greetings from Bukavu again. For the whole week iit was very difficult to obtain access to internet, since our schedule has been that tight for even the nights must be restricted to some 4 or 5 hours of sleep. The advantage in that was the fact that none of us had to go to appointments … Continue reading
Research in Kinshasa & an odyssey to Goma. Or Bukavu!?
Intermediate stop: Bukavu. Not that I had planned to be there today, on 18th of October, but things happen sometimes in a surprising way here in DRC. To start correctly, on Saturday, 15th of October I was supposed to confirm my flight from Kinshasa to Goma, via Kisangani. After a couple of calls to the … Continue reading
Kinshasa Vol. III
Hey everybody. It is 6 days now, since I came back to Kinshasa and still I could not really get started with my very work. Things are as difficult as always here. The transoport chaos has even aggravated since huge road rehabilitation programmes had taken place in the forefront of 50th independence anniversary and I … Continue reading
A history of rape and murder
Latest news reported new mass rapes in the area of Walikale, a former stronghold of Nkunda’s CNDP militia in Eastern DR Congo. Some 20 months ago, a lot of hope was expressed after the detention of renegade General Laurent Nkunda by Rwandan military. In the meantime, several joint missions have been carried out by … Continue reading
Should he become president of Haiti?
Wyclef Jean is running for presidency in Haiti this autumn. Without any doubt, he is one of the most excellent artists that hip hop music has ever known, but should he engage on that platform as well? After his official announcement reactions have been mixed… Among the most outspoken critics we noticed Sean Penn who … Continue reading
Failed States Index 2010 – Same same, but different!?
Finally, I take the issuance of this year’s Failed States Index as an opportune occasion to start writing again. To have a short-cut introduction, for different reasons I did not manage to write earlier on this blog. First, I felt somewhat exhausted after all the reporting from my work in Haiti during January, February and … Continue reading
Slow progress and new challenges
For the last ten days things in Hinche have not so much changed. Some time I had the impression that communication and coordination would improve after we had invested so much energy in exactly that domain. But this was maybe a superficial assessment and it did not really last. Even worse, we have some serious … Continue reading
‘Delivering as one’!?
This paradigm is basically used in New York when it comes to the efficiency and cooperation in between different UN bodies (For all Germans: We have a similar notion concerning the splintering of our development agencies, called ‘Entwicklungszusammenarbeit aus einem Guss’). I opted for chosing it as an headline, not to point on the local … Continue reading
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