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Democratic Republic of Congo

Related pages: | DRC homepage | Governance | Growth | HIV/AIDS | Community Recovery | Humanitarian Assistance

Social Services: increasing access by poor

Social sector indicators in DRC are among the worst in Sub-Saharan Africa. A combination of conflict, lack of funding and long term neglect has meant that many poor people do not have access to health and education services or clean water and sanitation. Many children do not attend school. What was once one of Sub-Saharan Africa’s better education systems now caters for barely half the primary school age population and the literacy rate is estimated at only 62%. Most of the costs of the education sector are borne by parents through a complex range of fees and charges. The situation in the health sector in DRC is dire. Medical services are of low quality and fees prevent most poor people from accessing services. Malaria and other preventable disease remain massive killers. UNICEF estimates that only around 1 in 10 children under five years old sleep under a mosquito net.

In the last two weeks 1 out of every 5 Congolese children will have had diarrhoea, because only 29% of the rural population has access to clean water and less than 30% of the population have access to adequate sanitation. Over 1 in 10 child deaths are due to diarrhoea. In addition, there are cholera epidemics every year in some provinces, with more than 20,000 cases per year.

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Primary education: getting children into school

DFID funding has enabled the NGO Catholic Relief Service to rehabilitate 45 schools in the very isolated district of Sankuru in south-central DRC. This required transportation of roofing sheets and other building materials by bicycle. Our humanitarian assistance has also helped rebuild schools destroyed by conflict and ensured that children in communities affected by conflict can continue their education. DFID is finalising a major programme, working with the World Bank, to reduce the fees that parents must pay to send their children to school. We believe that reducing fees will allow significant numbers of additional children to access primary school and we hope that this programme will allow at least 1 million extra Congolese children to go to school.

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Health: providing free basic healthcare

Malaria remains the major cause of death in DRC, but can be prevented. DFID has so far supported the distribution of over 1 million bednets in rural and urban areas, and to pregnant women and under fives through health clinics, in seven provinces in DRC. This has protected an estimated 2.5 million people from malaria. We plan to distribute a further 2 million nets protecting another 3.6 million people. Our funding has also ensured that over 500,000 women have access to reproductive health care and has allowed at least 500,000 children to be treated through health and nutrition programmes.

We are finalising a major programme to provide free health services to 2.1 million people in three provinces in eastern DRC, which will be implemented by two NGOs, the International Rescue Committee and Merlin. Our programme will support Government health zones to provide the services, which will focus on addressing maternal and child health issues and communicable diseases that particularly affect the poor. We hope that by demonstrating the huge impact that removing fees for health services can have our work will encourage other donors in DRC to follow this approach.

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Water and sanitation: providing clean water

DFID support so far has enabled 72,000 people to access clean water. Our contribution to the DRC humanitarian pooled fund has also assisted in providing water and sanitation to over 500,000 people and helped approximately 350,000 others gain permanent access to drinking water.

The most urgent water and sanitation needs are those in rural areas. Working with the UN Children’s Agency (UNICEF) DFID will support the government of DRC’s rural water and sanitation programme called Village Assaini or “Clean Village”. This will provide access to clean water and sanitation for 3.3 million Congolese. The programme will focus on providing appropriate technical solutions – so in most cases communities will be assisted to protect springs, which is simple and cheap – and on providing toilets and hygiene education.

Mbuji Mayi is DRC’s second biggest city. Although it has a population of 3 million its water and sanitation system only serves 300,000 people. Jointly with the European Commission we will also fund a community managed water programme to provide more of Mbuji Mayi’s citizen’s with access to clean water and sanitation.

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