Congo - PUSPRES Projet d'urgence et de soutien au processus de reunification economique et sociale Composante 3 : Rehabilitation des axes de transport prioritaires : indigenous people's plan

This report points out that the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has put in place a comprehensive reunification process to restart the economy and to reconcile the conflicting parties through a full array of programs and projects: the Emergency Multi-sector Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Program (PMURR), the Emergency Economic and Social Reunification Support Project (PUSPRES) and the Emergency Living Conditions lmprovement Support Project (PUAACV) among others. The objective of PUSPRES is to make sure that the component 3 of PUSPRES respects the dignity, human rights, economies, and cultures of the indigenous populations in the DRC and provides them equal and culturally appropriate benefits, to be defined in free and informed consultations. However, there are many prospective negative impacts to the Project. While the rehabilitation of the road network has the potential to enhance the living condition of the rural population as it increases the marketing channels for agricultural and forest products (timber, game and other non-timber-forest-products), the access to social infrastructure (hospitals, schools etc.), and assistance (governmental and non-governmental service providers), it is unlikely that the indigenous peoples will be able to receive similar benefits from PUSPRES as other populations. The rehabilitation of the road network runs the risks of reducing their incomes as it increases the access of the dominating Bantu populations to the natural resources (agricultural land, forests and minerals). While opening up the interior and its natural resource is a key prerequisite for rural development and poverty reduction, it forces the mobile hunter-gatherers to leave the impenetrable forests, where they traditionally practice a hunt-gatherer lifestyle, without taking their user rights into considerations and/or providing any compensation for this reduced access to their resources and their forests. The report concludes that in the long run the rehabilitation of the road network and the rural development will lead to an increasing permanent lifestyle of the Twa, Mbuti and Cwa who may have fewer capacities to defend their legal rights, become or remain as dependents of other ethnic groups, lose their cultural and social identity or become even more marginalized in the Congolese society.