Briefing Report on our Monthly Meeting with small local organizations in Goma DRCongo
Report on the first monthly meeting with organizations of the Civil Society in Goma, the Democratic Republic of Congo
Somme of the participants during the meeting
Yesterday Thursday April 18th 2024 we held our very first monthly meeting with organizations of the Civil Society based and operating in Goma. This was part of our strategic planning for this year to engage with others in order to define areas for advocacy, share experience and knowledge and exchange opportunities with organizations which are struggling.
The meeting focused on the presentation of the participants, briefing about COJESKI, challenges being faced by small organizations and the current social and political situation of North Kivu.
In total 20 participants attended from various local organizations working on various projects in North Kivu, some are at the provincial level others are at national level. The participants appreciated this meeting and suggested that it should be extended to other groups and associations.
Members shared number of challenges which are divided into the following:
Organizations level:
Group sharing and information exchange among the participants
Groups and associations have challenges of defining their specific areas of operation, and being focused on specific areas, associations which are created by politicians and others being created through influence of people working with big international organizations in order to implement their projects, we also observed the challenge of visibility, training and capacity building and accessing to funding among others. More attention was also put on the credibility of organizations as some have been funded and disappeared with the money.
Government level
The registration of associations and NGOs is extremely expensive and highly influenced by bribe and traffic of influence, while some who have influential people may only take a week in order to get their registration others may take a whole year. Small organizations are also having problems with high amount of taxes which needs a particular meeting in order to come up with what we can do.
United Nations Agencies
The United Nations Agencies have put in place their traditional organizations which they work with and have fenced the wall to the point other organizations are no lover encouraged to attend various clusters, it is also the same in terms of getting funding, the criteria for funding which highly exclude new and small organizations. Existing local organizations which have also developed deliberately put in place policies which may not welcome small organizations in order to share with them experiences, women organizations and associations are the most affected.
Local organizations were also concerned to observe that International Organizations are in North Kivu implementing themselves projects yet this could have been done by local organizations.
Donors
There are available opportunities for small organizations to engage with donors and no information is available at local level.
After exchange and sharing of experience participants were encouraged to specialize their interventions in specific areas, cultivate the culture of sharing with others regular reports of their activities and strengthen their administration with necessary documents and human resources. Organizations and associations were encouraged to distance themselves from political influence in order to reclaim community character, and at the same times work in partnership in order to discourage those fake organizations which tarnish the image of others.
It was also agreed that in our next meeting we shall come up with evidence based argument in order to define an advocacy approach with various stakeholders at various levels.
Because of other urgent issues which we had, we could not tackle the last point on the situation in North Kivu, and this will be addressed in the future meeting.
Our next monthly meeting will be held on May 30th, 2024 and people were encouraged to register for our common WhatsApp Group.
Achievements
Interesting to find out that people have a lot to share with others but they do not have opportunities
We are so glad that out of the 30 people representing various organizations 20 people came, the rest who were not able were generally from Pro-Democracy Pressure Groups who were arrested and detained in Goma.
We presented to participants our intentions to share with them available opportunities,
Weaknesses
The mobilization and invitation was limited to only those who could access social media,
The current economic constrain in Goma limits people with movement and we could not afford to pay transport refund,
The meeting could not even prove drinking water to participants and this cannot make the meetings more attractive,
There is need to do a field work in order to identify more others who are not yet informed about our activities,
Our monthly meetings with small local organizations needs funding in order to make it more attractive especially proving participants with snacks and soft drinking, access to internet, printing and photocopying among others, tables and chairs in order to work from the office before and after the meeting,
A.O.
Members shared information about the arrest and detention of pro-democracy pressure groups, we also exchanged on training opportunities in Lithuania on Transparency and encouraged the participants to attend our next fundraising training.
