Knowledge, Narratives and Resistors of Change

This paper examines how different understandings of the drivers of conflict, and the risks associated with intervention, impact on the overall efficacy of peacebuilding efforts in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It argues that differences in opinion over the logic and purpose of intervention can be as much of a barrier to intervention success as technical failures (such as poorly designed programmes or under-resourced projects). Drawing on over 3 years of field research carried out both in the DRC, and at high-level international policy meetings on intervention, the paper looks at how different knowledge about the DRC is mobilized to justify and criticise certain courses of action. The research finds that, while there is a general consensus among external interveners and local beneficiaries alike that there have been more than two decades of failed peacebuilding and statebuilding operations in the DRC, the reasons for this failure – and consequently the solutions to improving peacebuilding – are spoken about in increasingly divergent ways. Furthermore, while there are influential external interveners that are keen to promote locally-sensitive ways of working and operating outside the constraints of the log-frame, this impetus – contrary to popular belief – does not necessarily come from staff working on the ground. This paper explores how it is often high-level staff situated in headquarters that push for flexible and context specific intervention, while junior staff deployed in the DRC tend to be resistant to change. As headquarter staff often rely on information from the ground to inform programming decisions, so called “local-led programming” rarely ends up reflecting the needs of the locals, and this further compounds animosity towards external interveners. The paper unpicks this phenomenon by delving deeper into attitudes towards change in the DRC.