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The politics of civil service reform in the Democratic Republic of Congo*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 April 2014

Stylianos Moshonas
Stylianos Moshonas*
Affiliation:
School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies, Bristol University, 11 Priory Road, BS8 1TU, Bristol, United Kingdom
*
Email: steliosmoshonas@hotmail.com
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Abstract

Civil service reform is an important element of governance reforms, but has received limited attention in the literature pertaining to the Democratic Republic of Congo. This article examines Congo's aborted CSR process from 2003 to 2008. Through a detailed exploration of some of the project's components (the design phase, the census, and the workings of the structures charged with implementation), analysed through a framework attentive to the tensions between democratisation and liberalisation, the political logics that have pervaded and affected implementation outcomes are reconstituted. These logics, it is argued, are deeply embedded in the context of democratic transition/post-2006 elections, which donors have played no small part in shaping. The ambiguity of donors towards CSR, bemoaning the absence of governmental commitment but all too prone to tolerate administrative neglect, suggests that it may have been irrelevant for the disbursement of aid, and ultimately accommodating for the Congolese authorities.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 52 , Issue 2 , June 2014, pp. 251 - 276
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

INTRODUCTION

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is currently involved in a far-reaching process of reconstruction, restructuring and reform. This process began in 2001, with Joseph Kabila's arrival in power and the massive re-engagement of donor, diplomatic and peacekeeping actors with the country. Economic policy, under the guidance of International Financial Institutions, has been substantially liberalised. At the political level, the formal end of the second Congo war (1998–2003) heralded the beginning of a democratic transition (2003–2006), followed by elections in 2006 and 2011, from which Joseph Kabila emerged as the winner. Meanwhile, the United Nations peacekeeping presence was progressively scaled up, and although peace has proven elusive in the East, the situation has been partially stabilised, or at least militarily contained. The Congo thus represents an interesting example where a peace, democratisation and economic liberalisation process have been pursued simultaneously (Marriage Reference Marriage2010).

However, this triple transition process has not been bereft of contradictions. Leaving aside the ambiguities of peace-building interventions, this article endeavours to contribute to an understanding of governance reforms in the DRC. The latter have indeed been far-reaching in scope, ranging from public financial management, security-sector reform, justice sector reform or decentralisation. However, governance reforms have been deemed to have yielded inconclusive results, if not downright failure (Melmot Reference Melmot2009; Trefon Reference Trefon2011). Even though the government has paid lip service to the necessity of reform, progress has been extremely slow. Among the causes identified figure prominently political reticence towards reforms; the often externalised procedures through which they are pushed forward; and an emaciated administration and the fragmentation of the successive Kinshasa governments. In addition to these important dimensions, understanding the trajectory of reforms calls for a detailed exploration of the politics that pervade them. As Graham Harrison has argued, the strategic adoption or contestation of policy initiatives by African actors often follows logics irreducible to, or undecipherable by, the understandings donors depend on to execute governance reforms (Harrison Reference Harrison2005: 256). Excellent analyses of the practical workings of governance reforms in Congo have been made in the fields of education, decentralisation or customs administration (De Herdt et al. Reference De Herdt, Titeca and Wagemaekers2012; Englebert Reference Englebert2012; Cuvelier & Muamba Mumbunda Reference Cuvelier and Muamba Mumbunda2013). These studies suggest that the implementation of reforms, conducted with the financial and technical support of donors, have followed logics of political expediency and recuperation, through which administrative actors, political elites and the higher authorities have managed to safeguard their positions, often at the expense of the reforms' intended aims.

A similar process can be identified in the realm of administrative reform – a field which despite its crucial importance has received little attention. Identified early on as a key priority for re-establishing the state's authority and ensuring progress in the wider aid-promoted reform process, the saliency of administrative issues can hardly be overstated. The Congolese public administration presents the paradox of being both unavoidable for development assistance – for identification, definition and implementation of projects – and a significant obstacle to it, the state's weakened administrative apparatus impairing aid delivery mechanisms (Trefon Reference Trefon2010: 703). The present contribution has therefore a twofold aim: first, through an analysis attentive to the contradictions of Congo's triple transition, to help fill in the gap in the literature on governance reforms in Congo by investigating the project of civil service reform (CSR) that was under way from its early phase of conception in 2002 to its unravelling around 2008;Footnote 1 second, to draw the implications of this aborted CSR project for donor-state relations and aid delivery.

The account of the CSR project's demise is guided by the following questions: how was the process of administrative reform affected by the politics of the triple transition, and especially its liberalisation and democratisation dimensions? What kind of responses have donor-driven initiatives triggered among state elites and political actors? Further, what might this suggest regarding the action of donors, content promoting initiatives that are then addressed through the depoliticised mechanisms of development assistance? The analysis here is centred on the central administration, and the five pilot ministries selected in the project of civil service reform in particular.Footnote 2

The account presented shall outline the ways through which the CSR project spiralled into disintegration, sundered between government and aid fragmentation and its sidetracking by authorities pursuing aims aligned to the requirements of political expediency. Administrative reform – partially imposed on and half-heartedly pursed by ultimately reluctant power holders – was caught between the conflicting objectives of the triple transition and diverted from its aims, in a process that donor participation played no small part in shaping. The demise of CSR in 2003–2008, pursued with near-total disregard towards the wider political economy of the transition and post-electoral phase, may thus have proven somewhat irrelevant for practices of aid delivery, and ultimately accommodating for the higher authorities, particularly the presidency. The article begins with a brief overview of CSR experiments in Africa, followed by an outline of the specificities of Congo's triple transition. It then turns to Congo's administrative predicament in 2001 and the outline of the CSR project. The argument is illustrated by considering in detail three crucial dimensions: the phase of conception and project design; the census of civil servants; and the interaction of the structures charged with implementation. The implications of CSR failure are drawn together in the conclusion, in particular the accommodative characteristics it has presented for state authorities and donors alike.

CSR, THE STATE AND GOVERNANCE IN AFRICA

There is a large consensus that the profusion of CSR experiments in Africa in the preceding three decades have generally achieved very little (Olowu Reference Olowu1999; UNECA 2004; Ayee Reference Ayee2008: 66; IEG 2008: 53–6). The reasons identified behind this failure include the narrow technical emphasis of CSR projects, their defective design, and the lack of consideration towards the broader political economy in which reforms are pursued. In addition, as CSR projects are generally donor-driven across most of aid-dependent Africa (Ayee Reference Ayee2008: 74),Footnote 3 problematic reform implementation has been compounded by a welter of issues plaguing development projects at large: from the institutional incoherence fostered by the succession of reform fashions and invariably erratic donor coordination, down to the paradoxical erosion of state capacity by parallel implementation units (Polidano Reference Polidano2001; Darbon Reference Darbon2003; Moss et al. Reference Moss, Pettersson and van de Walle2006; Mkandawire Reference Mkandawire2009). Congo's CSR in the last decade fits the general pattern in that respect.

By way of contrast, however, there are some aid-dependent African states where CSR has been deemed successful, although even there results have proven moderate and easily reversible. Tanzania and Uganda in the 1990s – two countries where levels of development aid have been very high and donor influence extremely substantial – were both praised for their achievements in that sector. In both countries, reforms have involved downsizing of the public sector, ministerial restructuring, payroll reform, local government reform, and results-oriented management (Therkildsen Reference Therkildsen2001; Robinson Reference Robinson2007). In addition, the finance ministries and public service ministries of these countries were greatly strengthened by donor funds and political support – especially at the presidential level in Uganda – which allowed them to streamline their agendas (Harrison Reference Harrison2001: 667). However, as political support for the reforms waned, their precariousness became evident. As Harrison put it, not only has their progress depended on the financial incentives provided by creditors, but reform has been undermined by ‘a failure to address the deeper tectonics of accumulation’ in African states (Harrison Reference Harrison2001: 676). For example, Uganda's administrative reorganisation and CSR in the 1990s by no means eliminated patronage opportunities, but provided new scope for the latter: downsizing was offset by the growth of the political bureaucracy (Robinson Reference Robinson2007: 458) and military spending (Mwenda & Tangri Reference Mwenda and Tangri2005: 458–60), while opportunities for corruption expanded, even as high levels of foreign aid enabled the regime to sustain its patronage basis (Craig & Porter Reference Craig and Porter2006: 157–8). Similar evidence regarding the persistence of corruption and the fragility of administrative reform emerges from Tanzania (Harrison Reference Harrison2004: 109; Reference Harrison2010).

Such developments are echoed by the literature which has explored the political economy of reform in Africa since the days of structural adjustment (Hibou Reference Hibou, Bayart, Ellis and Hibou1999; van de Walle Reference van de Walle2001), which suggest reforms are often adapted, by-passed or manipulated by African political actors for purposes of power consolidation. Governance reforms, including CSR – with their technical focus, the emphasis laid on strengthening and enforcing formal rules and regulations, much of it pursued through the leverage provided by aid conditionality – have, according to some authors, paved the way towards further erosion of administrative capacity and contributed to the informalisation of politics (Hibou Reference Hibou, Bayart, Ellis and Hibou1999: 91–5; Kelsall Reference Kelsall2002). In a richly documented ethnographic study, Gerhard Anders (Reference Anders2009) has shown how Malawi's 1996 comprehensive top-down CSR programme foundered in the phase of implementation, in large part under the pressure of civil servants' unanticipated responses to an initiative which they strove to co-opt, adapt or manoeuvre around (Reference Anders2009: 7). Malawi's 1996 donor-funded civil service reforms, comprising the ‘enclave approach’ empowering new agencies to lead reform, retrenchment, computerised payroll systems and anti-corruption initiatives – short of strengthening the state apparatus – actually contributed to mutations within the parallel order through which the administration functioned since independence, but by no means heralded its displacement (Anders Reference Anders2009: 140).

The merit of Anders is to have shown precisely how top-down governance reforms compose with a plethora of socio-political logics (economic, ethnic, kinship, class, generational, and so on) which profoundly transform policy outcomes. Indeed, a growing literature on African administrations has emerged which documents empirically the ‘daily functioning’ of public sector organisations and bureaucracies (Blundo & Le Meur Reference Blundo and Le Meur2008); there have been significant contributions in this respect to understanding, for example, the social embeddedness of corruption (Blundo & Olivier de Sardan Reference Blundo and Olivier de Sardan2006), or the informal privatisation of public service provision (Hibou Reference Hibou and Hibou2004; Blundo Reference Blundo2006). However, thus far the promoters of top-down governance reforms have remained singularly unable to delve into – let alone work through – the realities of political economy in African states.Footnote 4 This inability arises in large part from the neoliberal theoretical foundations of African public sector reforms – many of them World Bank-driven (new public management, rational choice, new institutional economics, ‘good governance’) – which have proven rife with contradictions and ill-suited for deciphering the profound socio-political effects and reconfigurations which reforms produce (Hibou Reference Hibou1998; Moore Reference Moore1999; Harrison Reference Harrison2010). In addition to those elements, Congo's political context in the last decade has, however, been complicated further by its transition towards liberalisation, democratisation and peace.

THE DRC IN THE TRIPLE TRANSITION

In Congo, the normalisation of relations with donors since 2001 has entailed the adoption of a wide array of measures: succession of International Monetary Fund (IMF) macro-economic programmes, liberalisation of economic activity, admittance of the DRC to the Highly Indebted Poor-Country (HIPC) initiative, the adoption of a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP), the initiation of structural reforms, and the drafting of novel pieces of legislation with heavy World Bank expertise, such as in investment, mining or forestry. Importantly, economic reforms have been launched prior to, and layered onto, the process of democratisation and peace-building arising out of the peace agreements of 2002, and endorsed by subsequent political orders. By and large, the parameters of the transition from war towards power-sharing (2003–2006) and the 2006 elections were set through intense amounts of international pressure and guidance, the Congo finding itself during that period under a de facto state of semi-trusteeship (Willame Reference Willame2007). International intervention in the DRC has been credited with some significant achievements, especially when contrasted to the catastrophic situation prevailing in the 1990s: the war was formally brought to a close, the 2006 elections were acclaimed as a success, and a measure of short-term stabilisation attained. Economically, hyperinflation was curbed, economic growth resumed (Clément Reference Clément2004), domestic revenue expanded spectacularly, effectively trebling between 2002 and 2008 (De Herdt & Poncelet Reference De Herdt, Poncelet and de Herdt2011: 14), and spending in social sectors, particularly education, massively increased.Footnote 5 However, what may be called, following Zoe Marriage, Congo's ‘triple transition’ towards peace, democratisation and liberalisation has also been embroiled in profound contradictions.

Using a security perspective focused on three core policies of the triple transition – demobilisation, disarmament and reintegration (DDR), resource management, and power-sharing under the transitional government – Marriage provides a compelling account of how these inter-related donor-backed governance interventions produced perverse outcomes: far from leading towards the civilianisation of politics, the intensification of electoral competition in a militarised setting, with a devastated economy and public sector, generated an array of perverse outcomes driven by political expediency and bearing the seal of zero-sum spoils politics. During the 2003–2006 transition, these encompassed a rising tide of corruption (Kodi Reference Kodi2008; de Villers Reference de Villers2009: 47, 363–4), including large budget overruns by the power-sharing government at the expense of commitments towards ‘pro-poor spending’ (Omasombo & Obotela Reference Omasombo Tshonda, Obotela Rashidi, Reyntjens and Marysse2006: 245); near-total impunity for the actors emerging from the conflict (Willame Reference Willame2007); the spectacular rise in salaries and emoluments of political personnel even as the administration and army remained fund-starved (Kabuya & Tshiunza Reference Kabuya Kalala, Tshiunza Mbiye, Marysse, Reyntjens and Vandeginste2008); the fast sale of the majority of mining concessions in opaque circumstances, undermining the viability of the mining strategy the World Bank had been so active in pushing forward (Marriage Reference Marriage2011: 1901); and, generally, slowdown in the rate of realisation of structural reforms (Trefon Reference Trefon2011). These, albeit unpalatable to Congo's external partners, were effectively tolerated given the overarching objective of safeguarding the transition and holding elections, rather than upsetting their delicate balance. Following the elections, the presidency, freshly clad in internationally acclaimed electoral legitimacy, proceeded to what observers called a ‘closure of democratic space’, tightening its grip over government, legislative and judiciary and repressing opposition (Tull Reference Tull2010).

As noted by the head of the Congolese Central Bank, Jean-Claude Masangu Mulongo, the conflict situation and the democratisation context resulted in non-compliance vis-à-vis engagements towards multilateral partners (Reference Masangu Mulongo2009: 173). Summarily put, the objective of liberalisation – the promotion of good governance, particularly in the mining sector, the respect of macroeconomic fundamentals and structural reforms – was being severely strained by a raft of anti-liberal practices whose scope and intensity had much to do with the skewed democratisation process pursued. Such tensions between democracy and good governance are widely acknowledged in the literature (Callaghy Reference Callaghy, Callaghy and Ravenhill1993; Alence Reference Alence2004: 164–165; Ayee Reference Ayee2008: 72). Congo's trajectory seems to have followed what recent research by the Africa Power and Politics Programme has referred to as unrestrained forms of winner-takes-all multi-party democracy which produce strong incentives to focus on short-term distributive politics at the expense of longer-term accumulation (Kelsall Reference Kelsall2013: 24–5; for Congo, see Englebert & Tull Reference Englebert and Tull2013: 15–16). Drawing on the analytical distinction of the triple transition, particularly its democratisation and liberalisation dimensions, the following sections trace its implications for the process of administrative reform.

THE ADMINISTRATIVE SITUATION AT THE ONSET OF THE REFORM

The Congolese administration in 2001 was in an advanced state of decay: economic crisis, state disintegration during the late years of the Mobutu regime and above all the ravages of the successive wars had further eroded what little formal functionality remained. In 2001, a list of ills in the administration included over-politicisation, clientelism, predatory behaviour, absenteeism, lack of public service provision, derisory salaries (if paid), de facto privatisation, organisational chaos, as well as numerous inadequacies in equipment, information systems or simply functioning expenses (Nasser Niane Reference Nasser Niane2003). These problems are by no means exceptional in African administrations (Nembot Reference Nembot2000; Blundo & Olivier de Sardan Reference Blundo and Olivier de Sardan2006), although certainly more extreme in the DRC.

Public sector wages in 2003, for example, were among the lowest in the world, from $4 for the lowest paid to $35 per month for senior civil servants in 2003 (Morganti Reference Morganti2007: 6). However, nominal wages had become virtually meaningless, as arrears spanned months to years depending on the sector; in addition, salaries had been substituted by monthly supplements in terms of bonuses, which could constitute up to 90–95 per cent of the total salary (Verheijen & Mabi Mulumba Reference Verheijen and Mabi Mulumba2008: 4). This extremely opaque system of bonuses, moreover, conceals strong differences: first, between a better-endowed Kinshasa and the remaining provinces, and second, across ministries and public services themselves, depending on the revenue-stream of ministries or services (Congolese public sector syndicalist 2011, int.). Meagre and uncertain remunerations are further complemented by a range of informal activities, such as patronage through political parties, illicit trade, exercising parallel employment, embezzlement of public monies, or the privatisation of public assets (Wathum Reference Wathum Jacan Wadambe2004: 551).

The role of the Ministry of Public Service

As the official manager of state personnel and key institution in civil service reform, the Ministry of Public Service (MPS) merits some consideration. Its defects largely mirror those of the administration at large, and have been shaped through decades of administrative malpractice. Reflecting the highly centralised nature of Congo's administration, the MPS is formally the sole authority able to regularise recruitment and issue a badge number (numéro de matricule) for all personnel under its jurisdiction,Footnote 6 which in principle is tied to the payment of salaries (Ministry of Public Service official 2011a, int.). However, in practice the hold of the MPS over the career of government employees is rather theoretical: in 2002, it had control over only 21% of the personnel of other ministries, and lacked even a single computerised file at its disposal (Camaly & Tudienu Reference Camaly and Tudienu Magenga2008: 26). Another distinctive feature of the MPS is its relative unimportance in the governmental hierarchy. Its rank in the protocol order of the government, which in the DRC is taken to indicate precedence over others, has been consistently low. It ranked 30th out of 33 ministries in 2010, with important implications for the reform undertaken.

This is not to suggest that the MPS had become irrelevant: promotions of civil servants to upper echelons in the Lubumbashi administration (Katanga province), for instance, had to be purchased from the Human Resources Service of the MPS in Kinshasa (Rubbers Reference Rubbers2009: 248). More importantly, as one Congolese official put it:

Matters are rather complex, with the next elections approaching. Each member of parliament would like … to build a certain electoral base, but for that, one must remember that the economic infrastructure is destroyed, there are no companies to place people, so therefore, it is in the public administration that this is done. And as a result, it is the Minister of Public Service who is subjected to terrible pressures from politicians … (Ministry of Public Service official 2011a, int.)

Albeit circumvented, by virtue of its ability to regularise recruitment and promotions, the MPS thus nevertheless retains a strategic position.

THE CIVIL SERVICE REFORM PROJECT

The beginning of the civil service reform harks back to the arrival of Joseph Kabila in power in 2001, when the government pledged its engagement towards the realisation of necessary structural reforms, of which administrative reform was part. The original reform strategy comprised: a revision of the legal framework, a census of the civil service, an audit of payroll procedures followed by reorganisation, ministerial restructuring centred on a few pilot ministries, a retirement programme and a training programme. The different components of the strategy were tightly interdependent, with advancement in one conditioning progress in others.

In 2003, the structures charged with implementation were put in place, and positioned under the authority of the MPS, which would lead the reform. Several donors were involved: the Belgian Technical Cooperation (BTC) funded the structures of reform, particularly the reform implementation unit (4 million Euros); South Africa funded the census ($7 million), training and anti-corruption campaigns; the World Bank financed a $47.5 million retirement plan; France contributed $80,000 to the audit of payroll procedure and the elaboration of a payroll reform; and the UNDP financed the drafting of various legal texts, such as a new draft Statute of the civil service, and the draft of the framework law of central, provincial and local public services, among others (Diumasumbu Reference Diumasumbu Mukanga2008).

Reform failure and current patterns

By 2010, the CSR project was considered a failure by all donors involved.Footnote 7 Few results could be flagged as real achievements: the census had not been completed, ministerial restructuring proved slow, and the global remit of the reform (encompassing horizontally all ministries through sequencing via phases) rendered achievements harder. The $47.5 million earmarked by the World Bank for the retirement of 100,000 civil servants, supplied as direct budgetary support in 2005, had virtually disappeared as electoral preoccupations – in which finance was pivotal – loomed high on the horizon (World Bank official 2010a int.). Several evaluations, commissioned by Belgium to assess the effort conducted in administrative reform, pinpointed the shortcomings of the process (Camaly & Tudienu Reference Camaly and Tudienu Magenga2008; Saint Martin Reference Saint-Martin2008; BTC 2009). These included: the imposed character of the reform; inadequate support provided to the MPS, particularly by the national authorities; the upsetting of the reform by institutional changes, such as that of decentralisation in 2005; the multiple setbacks and delays the reform project experienced; and donor fragmentation. Unsurprisingly, these studies avoided dwelling on the political dimensions of administrative reform.

After 2008, as the bleak prospects for reform had become apparent, several donors involved withdrew from or curtailed their support for the project.Footnote 8 This disengagement had to do with the absence of tangible results, which donor thirst for success stories abhors, and towards which long-term processes of administrative reform are poorly attuned (Olowu Reference Olowu1999: 16). This phase of CSR has recently been succeeded by a renewed effort at administrative redress: in 2012, the institutional architecture of administrative reform was substantially overhauled (RDC/Ministère de la Fonction Publique 2012). A new, leaner committee of reform is now led by the prime minister, and the reform units have been merged into a single secretariat attached to the MPS. Ministerial restructuring is currently proceeding by sector,Footnote 9 with World Bank assistance, following the recognition of the failure of the earlier, globally integrated approach which encompassed horizontally all ministries (Verheijen & Mabi Mulumba Reference Verheijen and Mabi Mulumba2008: 21). It is too early, however, to assess this renewed strategy. The approach followed here, instead, seeks to place the earlier globally integrated CSR project in its proper context. It does so by unravelling the technical nature of the factors identified as major impediments to the endeavour by confronting them with the constraints and vagaries of the politics that pervaded them.

REFORM CONCEPTION AND DESIGN

The stage of conception and design is crucial to understand the trajectory followed by this reform. When the need for administrative reform was affirmed in 2001 by the government, two studies were funded, by the BTC and the UNDP respectively (Delta-I-Consulting 2002; Nasser Niane Reference Nasser Niane2003). Although supposedly complementary, these studies gave way to marked frictions and a fundamental disagreement over the approach to adopt: through their interposed consultants, a struggle of influence unfolded between the two agencies, which efforts at harmonisation did little to address (MPS officials 2010a; 2010b int.; BTC official 2010 int.; UNDP official 2010 int.).

The Congolese government, which could have settled the dispute by favouring one approach over the other, failed to take a firm stand, further adding to the confusion. Importantly, these negotiations over the strategy of administrative reform took place in 2002–2003, when Congolese leaders were involved in the Inter-Congolese Dialogue in South Africa, deciding the specificities of the transitional regime to be installed; Congolese officials in Kinshasa, confronted with the issue, did not feel sufficiently mandated to settle orientations on the formulation of the project, given the ongoing Inter-Congolese Dialogue negotiations (BTC 2009: 12). This was all the more difficult since Congolese officials involved were entirely dependent on the financial support of donors, and thus lacked the requisite capacity to settle debates pertaining to external expertise (Saint-Martin Reference Saint-Martin2008: 4). The result was a pronounced fragmentation of aid-related administrative reform activities, with some donors acting unilaterally outside any coordinated framework (Saint-Martin Reference Saint-Martin2008: 30).

Eventually, the Belgian proposal by the consultancy Delta-I-Consulting predominated, with implementation beginning in 2003. The reform objectives, in their Belgian configuration, were double: the implementation of an efficient public administration, and the emergence of a new type of motivated, effective and revalued state agent. Several principles guided the reform: the participation of national actors would be essential, the reform being premised on ‘strong political will’; the planning of activities and the evaluation of results was to tackle issues in their global, integrated dimensions; and the reform would be progressive, through the extension of efforts from pilot ministries to the rest of the administration (Diumasumbu Reference Diumasumbu Mukanga2008: 100–1). Performance and results-oriented management were to be at the heart of the reform (Morganti Reference Morganti2007: 39), while the aim was to achieve rapid change on a two- to five-year time-scale, in order to send strong signals and generate the confidence of the population and donors. An evolutionary, longer-term approach was thus rejected (Delta-I-Consulting 2002: 34–5).

Defective project design

Introduced into an emaciated administration, the ambitious aims of the reform envisioned a complete overhaul of administrative practices, along the lines of a functioning, new public management-inspired bureaucracy. Rather than working in the administration on the basis of existing arrangements, the situation was deemed beyond improvement; as informed observers put it, the thrust of the effort is best captured by the expression tabula rasa (UNDP official 2010 int.; MPS official 2011a int.). The Congolese administration, which operates through complex informal yet workable forms of accommodation between higher authorities, lower-level state actors, civil society actors and the initiatives of the population (Trefon Reference Trefon2007; De Herdt Reference De Herdt2011), found itself at the core of a reform strategy which all but side-stepped its subtle intricacies. As elsewhere in Africa, despite all the caveats in favour of sensitivity to local context and adaptation, the reform project attempted to shape the Congolese administration according to the ideal of a functioning, universal administrative template, with little preoccupation over immediate needs or local norms (Darbon Reference Darbon2003: 143).

The reform package, moreover, faced coherence issues: compounded by the transitional politics of power-sharing, where political patronage drove governmental appointments, the absence of a common vision in the Congolese government made decision-making arduous (Kodi Reference Kodi2008: 11). Poor coordination of donor interventions ensued. Congolese officials involved in the reform bemoaned the struggles of influence unfolding in the sector of administrative reform, and the proclivity of donors to select their interventions according to their own priorities and preferences (MPS official 2010b int.). The landscape of reform may therefore be characterised as a patchwork of multiple, partly overlapping and partly diverging initiatives.

This had to do with the uncertain times in which the reform was introduced; but it equally points towards the supply-driven aspect of the reform package: in the words of one observer involved in the process, ‘if the need was expressively formulated by the government in 2001, the expertise that configured the need was external’ (consultant 2010 int.). Administrative reform, as part of the structural reforms on which the disbursement of development aid has been officially conditional, was financed in its quasi-entirety by development funds. Just as in other such programmes, although the participation of civil servants was stressed, and indeed mobilised through the operational structure of the reform, it commenced after the design of the project: the project's short-term horizon, its goals, structure, the funding of activities all pointed towards little room for change (Harrison Reference Harrison2010: 54). In the words of one official, the reform was at its onset ‘the business of a few technicians, with the collaboration of Congolese experts, who sought to impose their point of view’ (MPS official 2011b int.). Although the reform displayed key elements of CSRs elsewhere in Africa, such as results-oriented management, new public management principles and the enclave approach, there was no clear strategy of how to realistically achieve its objectives. Instead, in line with other governance reforms, the initiative appeared overwhelmingly constructed as a managerial and organisational fix, rather than requiring the tackling of issues of politics or conflict (Marriage Reference Marriage2010: 368).

An evaluation of the project recognised some of the themes identified above, pointing to its premature launch in 2002–2003, the slim chances of success given the very short time frame of the project (from two to five years), low preoccupation over the actual needs of the Congolese administration, and the lack of consideration towards the political environment of the reform (Saint-Martin Reference Saint-Martin2008: 18). The project, in the words of one well-informed aid official, had virtually no chance of achieving its objectives, due to its narrow technical emphasis (bilateral cooperation official 2010a, int.); indeed, its aim of shifting the existing conduct of civil servants and rationalising the administration, was mainly premised on organisational change, to be achieved by a small team of empowered civil servants, with the support of the national authorities led by the MPS. The peculiar context in which the reform began and then unfolded, before and during the democratic transition (2002–2006), proved particularly inimical to the effort undertaken: political preoccupations revolved around the power-sharing agreement and the race of politicians to position themselves in view of the incoming elections; administrative reform was not one of the priorities throughout that period. Poor policy and programme design prefigured patterns of poor implementation that were to ensue (on this aspect of African CSRs, see Olowu Reference Olowu1999).

THE CENSUS IN THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF REFORM

The political dynamics of CSR, albeit glossed over in project literature, came to the fore most clearly during the census operation. A few observations regarding Congo's political context at the time are in order. When implementation began in 2003, at the beginning of the transition, the key political issue for the members of the power-sharing government was the conquest of power, given the upcoming elections. Administrative reform in this setting became confronted with issues of political expediency. With politicians eager to reward clients with promotions and recruitment in the public sector (Kodi Reference Kodi2008: 31), the build-up of a political following and militants turned recruitment in the administration into a key stake in the ensuing political battle (World Bank official 2010a int.). International involvement at the time, centred in the International Committee in Support of the Transition, was heavily engaged in safeguarding the transition process and successfully holding the elections, even if the price to be paid involved the side-tracking of other issues, including progress in structural reforms. Following the election of Joseph Kabila, the situation only marginally improved, inasmuch as his 2006 victory rested on a fragile coalition, which, reliant on new alliances carrying a heavy financial and political cost, resulted in government paralysis (de Villers Reference de Villers2009: 416; Trefon Reference Trefon2010: 708). In particular, recruitment in the administration, as the elections of 2011 approached, remained important, given the presidency's need for militants to secure re-election. The simultaneous pursuit of liberalisation and democratisation was marked in this case by a disjuncture between the political agenda and that of reform.Footnote 10

Census implementation and donor rivalry

Estimates of personnel in the public sector in 2003 lay at 600,000 (Morganti Reference Morganti2007: 25), although recent accounts suggest a more accurate figure might be closer to one million (Herdeschee et al. Reference Herdeschee, Kaiser, Mukoko Samba, Herdeschee, Kaiser and Samba2012: 88). The war, through displacement of populations including civil servants, and their replacement by new personnel appointed by the rebel movements (referred to as ‘nouvelles unités’), made it impossible to obtain reliable estimates. The census was supposed to address this situation. As such, it was perhaps the key centrepiece of the reform: without knowing the exact number of civil servants, rationalisation, retirement and indeed all other initiatives pertaining to administrative change were devoid of meaning.

The initial reform plans envisaged an early and swift census operation, beginning at the start of 2003, with an overall duration of six months, and an estimated cost of $3.5 million (Nasser Niane Reference Nasser Niane2003: 33, 39). However, implementation was slow to begin, effectively postponed due to delays in financing it, occasioned in large part due to a re-orientation in the reform project, whereby the census was allocated to South Africa instead of Belgium.Footnote 11 The census envisaged two phases: a manual identification of civil servants, followed by an electronic registration using biometric means (by storing fingerprints), which resulted in the handing in of public service identity cards. The first phase was finished in January 2006, but the second phase experienced huge delays, and was only completed in November 2013.Footnote 12 The procedure followed, moreover, created several problems. The second biometric phase did not involve physical control of the presence of the agent, but was solely based on control of the official papers handed in by civil servants (arrêté de nomination). New badge numbers were not allocated, despite the problematic nature of the current civil service badge number system.

Other problems have included the exclusion of the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education teaching personnel from the census operation, although they represent roughly 50 per cent of state personnel (Herdeschee et al. Reference Herdeschee, Kaiser, Mukoko Samba, Herdeschee, Kaiser and Samba2012: 34), and that the MPS has been deprived of access from census information and thus continued operating on the basis of manual lists and procedures (MPS official 2010c int.). Most importantly, although biometric identification has allowed the government to limit the phenomenon of ghost workers, the figures of civil servants throughout the census phases have fluctuated: the figure for manual identifications is much smaller than that arising out of biometric identification (MPS official 2011c int.). This has had to do with chaotic recruitments undertaken since 2005, especially when the successive Ministers of Public Service regularised the situation of irregularly hired personnel (MPS official 2010b int.).

However, the $7 million allocated to the census by South Africa was quickly depleted, and Belgium – which was originally supposed to lead the operation – was solicited to contribute some additional funds (€1 million) to permit its completion, but this amount proved insufficient. Given these complications, the approach adopted towards the census was heavily criticised, with South Africa finding itself at the heart of the dispute (bilateral cooperation official 2010b int.). The fact that the accuracy of the results of the census would be debatable, as its time span had stretched over several years, compounded the issue.

The political economy of the census

The reasons behind the poor outcomes of the census operation have had to do, mostly, with issues of political expediency. In particular, patterns of recruitment during the census point towards its instrumentalisation as an electoral strategy (World Bank official 2010a int.). Several factors deserve mention. To begin with, given the legacy of administrative practice and the strong centrifugal tendencies across ministries which render the control of personnel by the MPS all but theoretical, each ministry has turned into an autonomous decision-making centre in matters of recruitment. However, as the sole authority able to regularise recruitment through the granting of badge numbers, the MPS finds itself in the middle of intense pressures: examples of those include the signing of a circular note in 2005 by the MPS minister forbidding any recruitment during the census, that was never respected (MP official 2011a int.), or the same minister's confrontation with threats and insults when the census was launched (MPS official 2011d int.). This reflects the sensitivity of the issues touched upon by the census; these examples drawn from Congo's civil service, and the wider literature regarding African public administrations, suggest that administrative matters have an eminently political importance, intricately tied to patterns of accumulation and patronage (in addition to the authors previously cited, see Bayart Reference Bayart1993: 78, and for Congo, Bomboko et al. Reference Bomboko Bombelenga, Bopenda, Banyaku Luape Epotu and Kawe Kasongo2007: 18). With the dilapidation of the private sector, the importance of the public administration during times of elections has only gained salience; even more so when the democratisation process has multiplied political parties, and many politicians are seeking to carve themselves an electoral constituency.

The census, therefore, was used to accommodate the various pressures occasioned by the electoral process that crowned the transition, and continued to do so as the elections of 2011 approached. A study (Bomboko et al. Reference Bomboko Bombelenga, Bopenda, Banyaku Luape Epotu and Kawe Kasongo2007), citing anonymous sources from within the public administration, identified some of the methods through which the census was instrumentalised: the teams charged with the census were in majority composed of close collaborators or kin of the members of the MPS cabinet, lacking information technology training; additionally, the inspectors of the MPS had become ‘recruitment authorities’ by profiting from operations of control of existing civil servants to inject ‘new units’ often unknown to the recruitment services of the MPS. This has been facilitated by the confusion reigning around the structures charged with recruitment in the public service; the authority of the General Secretaries (Secrétaire Général, the highest administrative rank and nominal head in the administrations) is by-passed in practice, the ministerial cabinets often replacing them for reasons related to patronage or financial gain. Thus, operations of control, instead of correcting discovered irregularities, have served to validate them (Bomboko et al. Reference Bomboko Bombelenga, Bopenda, Banyaku Luape Epotu and Kawe Kasongo2007: 25–9, 42–5).

In understanding the significance of the census, several issues warrant attention. First, there is that of donor fragmentation and rivalry, which was fostered by the political climate of the transition and of the push towards elections, the latter at least in part of the donors' own making. In terms of CSR as a governance intervention, as already outlined above, the design of the reform package suggests the donors involved were both conceptually ill-equipped, and also politically reticent, to immerse themselves into this realm of Congolese politics. For instance, South Africa avoided questioning the legality of appointments in the civil service (MPS official 2010b int.), despite the latter's centrality in the census, and its engagement in funding anti-corruption activities in the DRC. Equally, the use of the census as conduit for recruitment was not mentioned in CSR evaluation documents, highlighting donor hesitations and uneasiness regarding the ‘low politics’ of the reform. Second, there is the issue of how timely was the launch of the census operation. Retrospectively, neither the original BTC design of a swift operation, nor its latter South African configuration, seemed realistic endeavours. Reliant on the authorities' staunch political commitment which transition politics were unlikely to deliver, the census operation was eventually reconciled to patterns of political expediency which emptied it of substance. At any rate, although most donor agencies involved considered the census a failure, this was not the government's position, which pushed forward until its completion in 2013.

REFORM IMPLEMENTATION IN PRACTICE: THE STRUCTURES OF REFORM

This picture can be completed by an examination of the structures involved in CSR implementation. The architecture of the CSR project involved several reform structures, which were put together in 2003. At the political level, an inter-ministerial commission (Commission Inter-ministérielle de la Réforme de l'Administration Publique, CIPRAP) was responsible for driving the reform, under the leadership of the MPS. It was endowed with a technical secretariat (Comité Technique de la Réforme de l'Administration Publique, CTRAP), whose role was the validation of the activities undertaken. At the operational level, the implementation unit (Groupe Projet Fonction Publique, GPFP) was responsible for providing the impulse behind the reform process, and was equipped with branches in the five pilot ministries selected (the Ministries of Finance, Budget, Plan, Public Service and Agriculture). The GPFP consisted in a small core of experienced, motivated, trained and funded Congolese officials who were, with the support of Belgian technical assistance, to provide the basic impetus for the initiatives undertaken. This, summarily put, was how the reform structures were meant to have functioned. They quickly became confronted with several problems, prominent among which figures the vagaries of Congolese politics during the transition.

First, the commission headed by the MPS – CIPRAP, comprising 15 ministries at its creation – was supposed to meet every three months upon convocation of the president (Diumasumbu Reference Diumasumbu Mukanga2008: 100). In practice, throughout its existence, it met merely three times (Saint-Martin Reference Saint-Martin2008: 7). A first difficulty arose from the specific power-sharing configuration of the transition, whereby the Economic Commission, headed by vice-president Jean-Pierre Bemba (head of the rebel movement-turned political party Mouvement pour la Libération du Congo and then principal rival of incumbent Joseph Kabila), comprised several ministries (including the MPS) whose ministers came from rival political groups; this led to institutional and political paralysis (Willame Reference Willame2007: 84).Footnote 13 Another major issue faced was the lack of political weight of the MPS: in the protocol order of the government, the MPS occupies a position at the bottom of the ministerial hierarchy, which complicated relations with higher-ranking ministers, the latter often declining injunctions or invitations from the MPS (UNDP official 2010 int.).

If CSR was not anchored into higher-level institutions, this reflected the low degree of priority it represented: devoid of support from the authorities, the mechanisms envisaged were emptied of their substance. The situation, tellingly, did not improve following the 2006 elections. The institutional architecture of reform was not altered; existing structures remained in place, even though their functioning hinged on a previous political order. Only recently, in August 2012, has CIPRAP been replaced with a new Committee of Reform, under the authority of the prime minister.

Donors and institutional fragmentation

Issues tied to donor procedures and institutional fragmentation also warrant consideration. The GPFP, as the core operational structure whose role was to initiate and sustain the reform process within the MPS, the other ministries, and the public services of the state, was confronted with a typical problem associated with the enclave approach to reform, the hostility arising from the rest of the administration toward what is regarded as the grafting of a new intrusive layer at the top (for example, Anders Reference Anders2009: 131). Such structures, often created at the behest of donors, are endowed with operating budgets which entirely dwarf that of classic administrative Directions, upon which they are superposed (Mathis et al. Reference Mathis, Kashoba and Warnier2008: 40). Initially supported by the BTC, which recruited, trained, equipped and funded its members through a system of bonuses, the GPFP eventually failed to gain acceptance as the operational reform structure, and thus to instil the process within other ministries. This derived in part from the resistance of the pilot ministries selected for CSR which did not see the efforts of the MPS, and of the GPFP in particular, to get involved in their restructuring ‘with an auspicious eye’ (MPS official 2010b int.). Such frictions also had to do, however, with the financial and material discrepancies underpinning the GPFP and other structures or services which were nevertheless supposed to collaborate with it (consultant 2010 int.).Footnote 14

These problematic relations were further complicated by a confusion reigning over the attributions of reform structures, as their responsibilities were unclear: the technical committee charged with the validation of realised initiatives and documents produced (CTRAP) and the operational structure (GPFP) very swiftly got involved in a turf war over their respective jurisdictions. These two structures which were supposed to complement each other, in practice largely overlapped; their relations deteriorated, which in turn induced paralysing effects on activities undertaken. In addition, reform structures had very limited control over some key facets of the reform process, such as payroll reform (supported by France and led by the Ministry of Budget), the census and retirement (led through the cabinet of the MPS with the support of donors) (Saint-Martin Reference Saint-Martin2008: 29).

The MPS and national authorities

The designation of the MPS as the leading institution in CSR, given its marginalised position vis-à-vis other ministries in personnel management, posed from the outset severe problems. As outlined above, the MPS is largely deprived of its role as manager and administrator of state personnel: each line ministry has been dealing autonomously with such matters for some time (Camaly & Tudienu Reference Camaly and Tudienu Magenga2008: 17), a situation which is profoundly rooted in the country's political and administrative history. Each ministry, in particular, disposes of one Direction that serves as the link with the MPS in issues of personnel management (the Directions Générales des Services); however, as all management and follow-up are done manually, the MPS is incapable of playing its role of control regarding state personnel. Given the low political authority of the MPS, this explains why it has encountered strong resistance towards change from other line ministries in its attempts at reform implementation (bilateral cooperation official 2010b int.). Reforms, indeed, were perceived as the affair of the MPS, and provoked little interest from other ministries. This has been the case for the Ministries of Budget and Finance, for instance, which have ignored the methodological framework of rationalisation created by the operational structure of the reform and have focused instead on specific reforms (such as public financial management for the Ministry of Finance and payroll reform for the Ministry of Budget) (Saint-Martin Reference Saint-Martin2008: 12).

The difficulties faced by the MPS were compounded by rotation of political personnel. Thus, from 2004 to 2008, six Ministers of Public Service followed one another; since then, another three have followed suit (World Bank official 2010b int.). This has significantly delayed progress, inasmuch as by the time one minister and his cabinet became familiarised with the issues at stake, they were replaced.Footnote 15 If this is one indication of the low degree of priority the reform represented, the issue of domestic sources of funding was another: CSR was not even included in the government's budget (Saint-Martin Reference Saint-Martin2008: v), which effectively supplied very little save for ad hoc sums according to the strategic priorities of the moment.Footnote 16

Most accounts, whether evaluation reports or discussions with involved officials, unsurprisingly underlined the low degree of ownership CSR occasioned from the national authorities. Contrary to administrative reforms in Uganda and Tanzania, where public service ministries were empowered politically and financially by the higher echelons of government and donors, the MPS in Congo was left in charge of a sensitive reform with neither the resources nor the political influence required for effective implementation. Its role as leading ministry in CSR, and its marginalised yet strategic status as the sole authority able to regularise recruitment, placed the MPS in an extremely delicate position.

CONCLUSION

The reform initiative, on the whole, had embarked – at least in design – on a mission to overhaul the Congolese administration by following a strategy based on a small team of empowered civil servants who would drive the process with the support of their authorities, on whose commitment the whole procedure ultimately hinged. This approach proved unsuccessful. It was effectively caught between the lack of interest of national authorities towards the reform, and the resistance deployed by the rest of the fragmented administration to what was perceived as the grafting of a new intrusive layer at the top. Ushered in at the middle of the democratic transition with expectations of short-term results, the reform retrospectively appears entirely incongruous. The narrow technical emphasis of the project and the absence of involvement in the lower politics of the reform, however, also had to do with the wider political setting: until 2006, the overarching objective of the Congo's foreign partners was the holding of elections and the safeguarding of the transition at all costs – even if that meant accommodation of unpalatable deviations from policies and setbacks in structural reforms.

There is a strong set of reasons which makes this seemingly minor reform matter. First, the analysis of the deeply flawed policy design which in turn facilitated subverted patterns of implementation contributes to a better understanding of the political context of reform between 2001 and 2008, effectively enmeshed in the contradictory superposition of fast-paced liberalisation and skewed democratisation policies. Second, given that administrative reform is a crucial component for improving state capacity and the efficacy of government, the relative neglect of this reform by the authorities and donors is quite revealing. The drift towards inconsequence of that phase of CSR is an apposite illustration of the ambiguities of donor action in the DRC. If donors have bemoaned the situation of administrative neglect and lack of capacity in Congo, they have in no small measure contributed to its perpetuation: the absence of commitment of the authorities towards CSR manifested itself in a specific context, that of Congo's transitional and immediate post-electoral order. The latter arose out of a political engineering process which donors were instrumental in bringing about. The poor outcomes of administrative reform, in this light, can be apprehended in a different way: lack of governmental commitment towards CSR may be perceived as a conscious strategy on behalf of ruling elites – and particularly the presidency – aimed at preserving control over dynamics inimical to its own endeavour of power consolidation, which strong institutions and an invigorated public sector might constitute (Trefon Reference Trefon2010: 708; Englebert & Tull Reference Englebert and Tull2013: 14). Indeed, the stakes represented by control over recruitment for patronage and public sector wages are far from negligible.

The position of donors, in that respect, is deeply ambiguous: on the one hand, the absence of governmental commitment – much to aid agencies' dismay – towards administrative reform is bemoaned; on the other, this effective by-passing of the administration – which nevertheless remains unavoidable for both association to and implementation of projects and programmes – has not significantly hampered donor funds from flowing, however impairing this configuration may have proved in practice. Indeed, if the problem of the weakness of national systems has been transiently resolved through recourse by external actors to temporary project implementation units, this has contributed to the maintenance of the administration in a permanently vegetative state – a solution which appears to undermine its own purposive goals, the strengthening of capacity (RDC/Ministère du Plan 2009: 25). There is growing recognition of these issues by donors: in the absence of some sort of administrative redress, sustaining sectoral reforms is impossible, given these are unavoidably carried forward by state personnel.Footnote 17 In this respect, the renewed strategy of administrative reform in place since 2012 is certainly a welcome step. Recent advances have been made in the payment of civil servant wages, now carried by a centralised system of payment by the Congolese Central Bank, and there are efforts to rationalise and render transparent the system of bonuses, so that wages become the major part of remuneration. Whether the political context following the 2011 elections holds more promise, as such encouraging signs suggest, remains to be seen.

Footnotes

*

The author would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions.

1. The research is built on field work conducted in 2010 and 2011, particularly interviews with officials of the Ministry of Public Service, officials from the various aid agencies involved, as well as other informed participants. All interviews were confidential, and only some general information regarding the informants is supplied here.

2. Decentralisation and local level processes are thus left outside the scope of this study, a choice motivated by the top-down, highly centralised emphasis of the project analysed here.

3. This discussion leaves aside states such as Botswana or South Africa, whose CSR policies have been home-grown and where the role of development aid in the policy process is much less.

4. As a result, some have called for donors to explicitly engage, and compose with these realities, for example Booth & Cammack (Reference Booth and Cammack2013).

5. The total budget for education was $171 million in 2007, from $20 million in 2003–2004 (André et al. Reference André, De Herdt, Egboki, Imbongo, Iwewe Kpongo, Kitshiaba, Konen, Mrsic-Garac, Mundala, Ndjibu, Nlandu, Poncelet, Titeca, Wagemakers and de Herdt2011: 144).

6. The authority of the MPS does not extend to all categories of government employees (teachers, army or academic personnel are beyond its prerogatives).

7. This was clear during interviews. Interestingly, the final BTC evaluation of its CSR project marked it as ‘satisfactory’, despite falling short of reaching its global objective, due to its pertinence as well as the achievement of some specific objectives (BTC 2009).

8. This was the case for the BTC, the UNDP and South Africa in particular.

9. Essentially, the strategy consists in proceeding ministry by ministry, through the revision of organic frameworks, identification of personnel, retirement, recruitment and training.

10. Delays occasioned in the validation of key reform texts by parliament and senate are other illustrations of this; the new civil service statute, funded by donors and drafted since 2010, and the new framework law for the central, provincial and local public administration, had still not been promulgated in late 2013.

11. This decision allegedly came after a Congolese delegation was taken to South Africa to see how the public service was run, the computerised management of the South African civil service (registration, wage payment, digital documentation) making a strong impression upon the delegation (MPS official 2010b int.).

12. The figures of the census have not yet been finalised, and its results are not yet known; in addition, verification operations on the basis of declarative lists submitted by ministries for the census also have to be undertaken.

13. That the Minister of MPS at the time, Athanase Matenda, managed to re-orient and launch the census in 2005 was ascribed to his dynamism (and background in business) by MPS officials interviewed; he was subsequently Minister of Finance until 2010.

14. This is a well-known point in the literature on aid-dependent states, with relations between unequally endowed officials ‘characterised as often by envy, resentment and cynicism, as by collaboration’ (Nembot Reference Nembot2000: 285; van de Walle Reference van de Walle, van de Walle, Ball and Ramachandran2003: 22).

15. This process also affects officials manning donor projects: three coordinators of the BTC project of administrative reform succeeded one another, partly due to personal disputes with Congolese officials staffing reform structures, occasioning delays (UNDP official 2010 int.).

16. The government allegedly supplied some funding to the census operation (consultant 2010 int.).

17. Personal communication, consultant, November 2013.

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Interviews

Congolese public sector syndicalist, Kinshasa, 7.6.2011

World Bank official, Kinshasa, 20.7.2010 (a)

MPS official, Kinshasa, 18.6.2010 (a)

MPS official, Kinshasa, 30.5.2011 (a)

BTC official, Kinshasa, 21.6.2010

UNDP official, Kinshasa, 17.5.2011

UNDP official, Kinshasa, 27.7.2010

MPS official, Kinshasa, 7.7.2010 (b)

Consultant, Kinshasa, 4.8.2010

MPS official, Kinshasa, 20.4.2011 (b)

Bilateral cooperation official, Kinshasa, 5.7.2010 (a)

Bilateral cooperation official, Kinshasa, 10.6.2010 (b)

MPS official, Kinshasa, 16.7.2010 (c)

MPS official, Kinshasa, 26.5.2011 (c)

MPS official, Kinshasa, 1.6.2011 (d)

World Bank official, Kinshasa, 21.7.2010 (b)