United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Kinshasa)
Hem Okaré
14 March 2008
Ross Mountain, Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary General and Resident Coordinator of the United Nations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo visited Ituri for 48 hours on 11 and 12 March 2008, where he took part in the opening of the first consultative workshop on the Action Plan for the stabilization and Community recovery in Ituri.
More than 220 participants took part in that workshop organized jointly by MONUC and the UNPD.
The workshop comes after a mission conducted in January 2008 in Bunia by Ross Mountain in order to respond to the need for convergence between the different existing plans of MONUC, the UNDP and the Congolese Government.
This meeting aims to "promote better understanding, among local actors and different partners, of the challenges in security, politics and community for the stabilization of Ituri."
If MONUC remains engaged essentially in the security sector in order to bring stability, the UNDP, development agencies and the government are going to join their effort to consolidate that stability through development actions in the priority sectors that will be defined in the current workshop.
Giving an account of the progress made up to now, the Deputy Special Representative said: "In 2003, there were 800,000 displaced persons in Ituri. Today, this figure fell to 115,000. Out of the 7 armed groups, only two still remain active. 25,000 militiamen and 11,000 children associated with armed groups have been demobilized." However, he added: "there is still a small number of armed people who prevent the people in Ituri to live in peace."
"I am confident that stability will take place soon. Your role is to establish this platform that will work for this stability in order to create an environment where the population would feel at ease and the displaced would be encouraged to return home," he said to the participants.
As a conclusion, Ross Mountain drew the attention on the necessity to reinforce the authority of the State at all levels - administrative, military, security, judicial, economic and social.
For his part, Autsai Asenga Médard, the governor of Province Orientale, exhorted his fellow countrymen to consider passionately the sessions of this workshop which imposes itself as "an emergency and an imperative." For him, "It is time to stand together so that the situation that Ituri has experienced will not come back anymore."
In the evening, during the presentation of the 2008 Humanitarian Action Plan by the head of OCHA in Ituri, the Deputy SRSG reminded of the progress achieved in this country. He named as an example the elections and the establishment of democratic institutions.
«If the needs are still great and we do not see the impact of all that has been accomplished on the humanitarian side, it is because there is always a delay between actions and their effects," he said. "The situation is far better than in 2003," he concluded.
The cost of the 2008 Humanitarian Action Plan is 575 million US dollars, of which 57 million - that is 10% of the total - is for Ituri.
On March 12, Ross Mountain flew to Mongwalu to salute the Pakistani battalion who is getting ready to be redeployed to South Kivu. From there, his delegation went to Mahagi, where he took part in the diploma-awarding ceremony for the first graduating group of the Centre Social Féminin (the Feminine Social Center). The recipients all received a kit that will help them get started in their new occupation as tailors.
Later, Mr. Mountain gave to the local authorities the keys of the new building of the Peace Court, a construction that was financed by the UNDP. He seized that opportunity to remind of "the importance of justice in the lives of the population of Ituri, for the building is nothing in itself, but what happens inside it that counts."
Prior to returning to Bunia, he also met with the humanitarian community working in this territory.
The Ituri journey of the Deputy SRSG ended with a meeting with the press at Bunia airport where he reconfirmed the commitment of the international community to continue to support Ituri district. He reminded that, out of the 12 million dollars for the Province Orientale for the first quarter of the year 2008, 5.7 million will be for Ituri so as to support projects in the sectors of education, water and sanitation, food security and health.
In addition, an additional five million dollars will be used for the reparation of the bridge between Ituri and Kisangani with the support of the team of MONUC's Nepalese military engineers.
Other actions are also planned in the security sector in favor of the FARDC stationed in Ituri in order to improve their conditions of life.
About a new DDR program, Ross Mountain said "there will be no more DDR, but the militiamen who continue to be active still have the possibility to join the "Haute intensité de main d'oeuvre (HIMO) (the High Intensity of Labor Program).
Ross Mountain left Bunia promising to come back soon.
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