CONAFED in action for citizen governance

By Badylon Kawanda Bakiman

The Comité national femme et développement (CONAFED), a Congolese organization dedicated to promoting a fairer, more harmonious society through the “gender approach”, which fosters the emergence of women's leadership, and to creating a framework for research, consultation and solidarity to support women's associations and others promoting “gender”, is back in the spotlight. It has just carried out a number of activities in Kikwit, Kwilu province in the south-west of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
These activities, implemented in this city by the Réseau Femme et Développement (REFED) Kwilu, were propitious opportunities to bring accountability, citizen governance, citizen control and gender to the fore.

The Tribune d'expression des élus (TEE), as a space for interactive dialogue, for example, is among the activities carried out during the month of December 2024 in the meeting room of the urban Gender, Family and Children office on December 07, 2024.
There, the mayors of all the communes, the deputy mayor of Kikwit and a number of elected representatives (provincial deputies and a representative of a national deputy) reported on what they had achieved since taking up their posts.

In the case of the mayor's office, for example, the saving of the Kwilu Bridge, the improvement of the Cohydro roundabout and the fight against urban banditry were cited among the achievements.

For his part, Serge Musila, burgomaster of Nzinda, spoke of anti-erosion work; the coaching of young people through a soccer tournament; public hearings to combat youth banditry and other incivilities; awareness-raising sessions to change behavior...
In the commune of Kazamba, Burgomaster Sylvie Mukwa spoke of the sanitation work that the commune organizes from time to time; the demolition of anarchically-built houses; manual cantonnage work on the Kazamba road, which is one of the main agricultural feeder roads, and so on.

The few achievements of provincial and national deputies were also discussed. Participants made a number of recommendations to the elected representatives and power-holders of decentralized territorial entities (ETD).

Other CONAFED activities included dialogue and training on local governance, i.e. participative governance, citizen control and gender in ETDs. Presentations by Badylon Kawanda, Delphine Ntanga, Guislaine Lanasa, Charlotte Lula and others highlighted the issues of participatory governance, citizen control and its tools, and the notion and integration of the gender approach in ETDs. Enriching presentations followed.

It's worth noting that these activities were preceded by a review and updating of the community specifications drawn up by the multi-stakeholder Synergy, not to mention constructive recommendations.
Well-informed observers hailed this series of actions by CONAFED, while recommending that it keep up the momentum so that CONAFED can achieve its vision and goal.