Cash-for-work programs supported by USAID/OFDA enable conflict-affected Congolese to earn income for themselves and their families.

Kirsti Lattu/USAID

Key Developments

Armed violence continues to drive population displacement and humanitarian needs in the Kasaï region, resulting in approximately 1.4 million new internally displaced persons since August 2016; an additional 33,000 people have fled to Angola since April 2017, the UN reports.

Intercommunal fighting and insecurity throughout July and August have prompted population movements in Haut-Katanga, North Kivu, South Kivu, and Tanganyika provinces, exacerbating food insecurity and the risk of disease outbreaks in affected areas. In response, relief actors, including USAID partners, are providing emergency assistance to affected populations.

As of June 2017, an estimated 7.7 million people in Democratic Republic of the Congo were experiencing acute food insecurity, a 30 percent increase compared to the 5.9 million acutely food-insecure people identified in June 2016, according to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification analysis.

Background

Despite the implementation of a peace agreement in 2003, ongoing fighting between forces loyal to the Government of the DRC and various armed entities—including the Allied Democratic Forces, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, and Mai-Mai militants—has contributed to high levels of insecurity and population displacement in eastern DRC. In addition, intensified fighting between the Armed Forces of DRC and local militia in central DRC’s Kasaï region since August 2016 has generated new humanitarian needs in the country. Humanitarian access constraints, poor infrastructure, forced recruitment into armed groups, reduced access to agricultural land and traditional markets, and violence have contributed to the deterioration of humanitarian conditions in DRC and mass internal displacement and refugee outflows since 2016.