Providing Evidence-Based Research For DFID DRC

Integrity is working to deliver the Evidence, Analysis and Coordination Programme (EACP) in the Democratic Republic of Congo on behalf of the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and in partnership with Atos Consulting, Search for Common Ground, Burton Rands, Resource Consulting and the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI). The programme started in April 2013 and will continue over the coming two years.

Terre des Hommes

EACP is an initiative designed to assist DFID in understanding the underlying causes, features and dynamics of fragility in the DRC, and examine potential drivers of conflict. This will enable priorities and opportunities for engagement to be identified for future DFID programmes and develop an understanding of vulnerability in the DRC in its broadest sense.

The EACP aims to increase the pool of knowledge and expertise that DFID has access to, from individual practitioners and academics to institutional learning from other donor institutions and development organisations. This has been arranged through:

1. An Expert Panel, comprising five senior DRC experts with experience from the donor community, security sector, regional and local civil society organisations;

2. A Sector Resource Pool, comprising many DRC experts with specific thematic and methodology expertise ranging across health, natural resource management, security and justice, and economic development. The Sector experts have combined expertise across all 11 DRC provinces.

3. A small Secretariat manages the networks and coordinates research responses to DFID requests.

The experts are collating existing information through political economy analyses cutting across priority provinces and thematics. This involves desk research and key informant interviews with national and international actors. In July 2013, Integrity assisted in designing the methodological framework for the research studies and associated strategic dialogue undertaken under EACP.

Thus far, Integrity has contributed to the delivery of two pilot studies, conducted in September 2013 as part of the inception phase of the project. The first is a Political Economy Analysis of Kasaï Occidental and a sectoral study of Political Governance in South Kivu.

EACP Workshop in Kinshasa, October 2013

Last month Integrity CEO Anthony Ellis travelled to Kinshasa along with Guillaume Lacaille, Integrity’s Project Manager for the EACP, to participate in a three-day workshop designed to bring together the Expert Panel, DFID’s DRC team and various other international partners to present the two recent pilot studies and hold discussions on recent research findings and donor coordination.

The workshop was successful in creating an open discussion between the Expert Panel and DFID DRC on practical approaches to utilising key implications of the research. There was a focus on factoring political economy analysis and conflict sensitivity into future programmatic thinking and in defining the scope of future research studies. The workshop also served to identify and involve key international stakeholders in a strategic dialogue on how to better coordinate research approaches and findings.

Integrity is excited to continue expanding its work in the DRC, applying our extensive knowledge and expertise in conducting evidence-based research analysis, monitoring and evaluation and stakeholder engagement in fragile and conflict affected states.