Fight against land conflicts: Kasenyi Land Brigade equipped with an administrative building. Photo MONUSCO/
MONUSCO, through the International Strategy for the Stabilization of Congo (ISSS), officially handed over to the Provincial Government of Ituri, on Tuesday July 28, 2020, a building which will serve as administrative premises for the Kasenyi Land Brigade, in the territory of Irumu.
This is one of the achievements of the "Pamoja Kwa Amani" stabilization project (in French "Together for Peace"), in its land governance component; the work began on November 12, 2019, in the Chiefdom of Bahema Sud, in Kasenyi, 55 kilometers from Bunia. It was carried out in partnership with UN-HABITAT and the Ituri Land Commission (CFI).
The objective of this project is to restore state authority at the local level, not only by bringing the land administration closer to citizens, but also by facilitating secure access to land and land information; thus fighting recurring land conflicts, identified as the root cause of the multiple deadly violence, destruction of farms, torching of houses, etc. in the region, and also throughout the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
For Kataloho Takumara, Chief of the Bahema Sud sector, this project will restore peace and community cohesion.
‘’It will allow us to reorganise our Sector, to redraw the avenues, to resolve the various problems between the concessionaires and the farmers, but also to reduce the distance: before, we had to travel 55 km to Bunia for any land-related disputes. For the population, it is a sigh of relief, because everything will happen here on the spot, we will no longer pay for transport to go and pick up documents in Bunia ; we will now have everything here in Kasenyi ”, he said.
The project cost $ 70,000 (including $30,000 for equipment). The administrative building consists of 8 rooms including: 1 waiting room, 2 offices (Land registry office and real estate titles), 1 secretariat, 1 technicians’ room, 2 rooms for archives and 1 room for electrical equipment. In addition, there are computers, motorcycles, surveying equipment (digital theodolite, metal markers, steel decameters, aluminum tripier) and other office supplies.
The ISSSS Strategy for Eastern DRC was designed to support the implementation of the DRC Stabilization and Reconstruction Plan (STAREC). This is a framework for harmonizing the efforts of the international community (represented by MONUSCO through the Stabilization Support Unit, UAS) in support of the Congolese government represented by STAREC.
ISSSS mobilizes resources which are then made available to the Congolese government to help the stabilization programs be established in the priority areas. In addition to Ituri, ISSSS is present in other eastern DRC’s provinces such as South Kivu and North Kivu, where projects are currently underway, particularly in Beni.
As for the "PAMOJA KWA AMANI" Project, it covers 7 decentralized entities in the south of the Irumu territory in Ituri. Significant progress has been noticed in its implementation phase, in particular through the improved security situation characterized by decrease in human rights violations, improvement of the quality of the local administration services and in community recovery.