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The Democratic Republic of Congo: Rethinking State Building

By Seth Kaplan

January 14, 2009

The Congo's volatile combination of abundant mineral wealth, ineffective government, and weak national cohesion requires a systemic approach that takes advantage of the various capacities and interests of stakeholders to overcome persistent instability. Multinational companies, for example, are the only actors in the resource-rich provinces of North and South Kivu with the incentives and capacity to secure mining sites and provide public services. The DRC's communities are so divided by poor infrastructure, distance, weak institutional linkages, and linguistic differences that solutions driven by local communities are likely to be much more productive than national programs. In this power point presentation, Seth Kaplan discusses the challenges to stabilizing the DRC and proposes alternative methods of bringing security and development to the state.

Download: The Democratic Republic of Congo: Rethinking State Building (PPT, 497.00 K)