French president pledges support for Africa’s Great Lake region

During the Paris Conference, which took place on 30th October with several Central African leaders and NGOs, Emmanuel Macron announced France would be donating 1.5 billion euros to support the Great Lakes region, according to RFI plus agencies.

This funding will be spent on emergency humanitarian aid, development and peacekeeping efforts; however, it was not specified when it would become available.

The Paris Conference was organised jointly by France and Togo, which is the African Union’s designated conflict mediator, and it aimed to focus on humanitarian issues, on the margins of the diplomatic and economic deals negotiated by Washington.

The funding announcement was welcomed by most leaders, although Togo’s President Faure Gnassingbé called for Africa to take part in its own humanitarian efforts, noting that it was a matter of “dignity and effectiveness”.

According to the Congolese newspaper Actualité.CD, Gnassingbé defended a pan-African, localised approach, which should focus not only on the urgent situation in Eastern Congo, but also on the future of its inhabitants.

Reports also highlighted the fact that the funding announced included past promises; the new pledge only amounts to 500 million euros.

The Great Lakes, centred around Lake Victoria, cover parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Malawi, Kenya and others. It is a region marked by decades of conflict and civil wars, most notably the Rwandan genocide in which France played a key role.

The current conflict in DRC, which opposes the Congolese army to Rwanda militias, is one of the most pressing issues in the region. The DRC president, Felix Tshisedeki, announced a further $5 billion pledge to support the rebuilding of Eastern regions North and South Kivu, which have been decimated by the conflict.

While DRC and Rwanda have held peace talks and signed a peace deal in Washington last June, little has changed on the ground, with Rwanda-backed M23 militias still controlling large swathes of Eastern Congo. Nevertheless, the conference shed light on a conflict that has been largely ignored by Western media and provided a platform for African leaders to discuss local issues and economic cooperation.

RFI via AFP, Actualité.CD, Maghrebi.org