Country context

Protracted displacement in the DRC

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is home to nearly 6.4 million displaced persons (as of 31 January 2025) (UNHCR 2025a), one of the largest internally displaced populations in the world (IDMC, 2024). The DRC hosts 519,188 refugees and 16,065 asylum seekers with more than 1 million DRC citizens now registered as refugees in neighbouring countries (UNHCR, 2025b). It is surrounded by nine neighbouring countries, namely Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, the Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Zambia. Much of this displacement has arisen from the current crisis, particularly since mid-2024, but even before the origins of this crisis in 2022 there were as many as 4 million internally displaced people (IDP) in the DRC.

At the national level, not all provinces are affected by the phenomenon of displacement to the same extent. Two provinces, namely North and South Kivu, alone represent nearly 60% of the total number of displaced persons, or 3.8 million; 2.3 million and 1.5 million respectively (UNHCR, 2025a). This share was already around 56% in 2021. This shows the scale that the phenomenon of displacement has taken in the eastern part of the DRC. It also highlights that although displacement is particularly acute during the ongoing conflict, this is much more of a chronic problem. Many of the increasing number who have been displaced since early 2024 had previously been displaced and some had been living in ‘temporary’ camps for more than a decade.

This displacement of populations in the east of the DRC is principally a result of armed conflicts exacerbated by the chronic presence of multiple armed groups, local and foreign, who have taken up residence there (Guichaoua, 2004). This is further complicated by regular natural disasters – landslides and volcanic eruptions – and inter-community conflicts (Lututala, 2010).

Political and regulatory context

Law No. 021/2002 of 16 October 2002 determines the legal context of the status of refugees in the DRC, with regard to the Geneva Convention of 28 July 1951 and that of the OAU of 10 September 1969 both of which the DRC is a signatory to. It also establishes the National Commission for Refugees (CNR), a public service attached to the Ministry of the Interior and responsible for managing refugees on a daily basis. This law is usefully applied in collaboration with the UNHCR, given the many challenges linked to the instability in the Great Lakes region and the significant presence of refugees and asylum seekers on Congolese soil. The most significant countries of origin are Rwanda, the Central African Republic, Uganda, South Sudan and Burundi.

Internal displacement in DRC is covered by Law No. 29/2023 of 30 September 2023, ‘bringing protection and assistance to internally displaced people’. This law guarantees protection and equality of treatment to IDPs, specifying particular rights that they will enjoy (Art. 17) and highlighting the duties of ‘the State’ and (unnamed) humanitarian organisations. This law gives legal force to the provisions of the African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance to Internally Displaced Persons in Africa that was adopted in Kampala in 2009 and entered into force in 2012. The government of the DRC signed the convention in 2010 and ratified it in 2022. In implementing this convention, Law No. 29/2023 provides a powerful legal basis for the protection of IDPs in the DRC. It is unfortunately very vague in terms of duty bearers to protect and assist IDPs. The main responsibilities lie simply with ‘the State’ without specifics as to the particular ministries or services who hold that duty, or the role of the national police force or the Armed Forces of the DRC (FARDC). In the current crisis, the majority of IDPs in the country are on territory in North and South Kivu that the government has not fully controlled since at least early 2024. Although people newly displaced by the current crisis have received some support, IDPs involved in our research had not received support from NGOs for at least several years. This is common across North and South Kivu (Jacobs & Kyamusugulwa, 2018).

Main research challenges

This research was conducted in three different sites: Kinshasa, the capital; Masisi, one of the territories of the North Kivu province; and the Kalehe territory in South Kivu; the last two sites being located in the east of the DRC. Many challenges marked the data collection, including difficult access to certain places such as the mining town of Rubaya; the mistrust of displaced people and refugees settled in the camps; contact with displaced people settled in host families; the inevitable expectations that displaced people placed on the investigators in terms of improving their daily lives; the risk linked to insecurity in certain places, for example, in Rubaya and Kitshanga in Masisi; and technological challenges linked to the lack of internet coverage and the lack of electricity in certain areas. Moreover, the resurgence of the M23 rebels from December 2022 dealt a severe blow to data collection in Masisi territory, such that the second panel survey was not possible in Kitshanga; the team organised the collection in Rubaya instead. Furthermore, at the beginning of May 2023, landslides occurred in the localities of Bushushu and Nyamukubi in Kalehe territory, leading to at least 152 deaths, leaving 95 people officially missing and causing significant material damage. This was far from our main research site in this territory, so it did not directly affect any respondents or the research team but it heightened the atmosphere of insecurity and fear with which many others lived, particularly those who had themselves escaped large landslides on earlier occasions.

The research process

This is a comparative research study carried out using an innovative methodology that consists of a carefully sequenced combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches. Methods were coordinated across the Protracted Displacement Economies (PDE) project (see Chapter 1. this volume for an overview), and this section considers details of the approach across the DRC. For the reliability of the data, the collection was carried out in two stages and on several occasions: focus groups, interviews, then surveys, workshops and documentary films. The results of the methods in the field were adapted in the DRC. After briefing sessions for the data collectors (local investigators), negotiations were considered at the site level, especially since the climate of insecurity sometimes threatened the smooth running of the research, without forgetting the accessibility of certain localities. For example, the towns on the border with Rwanda of Goma and Bukavu were central hubs in the organisation of the research. Paralysis of these towns occurred periodically and clashes between civilians were publicised and had an impact on the planning of research activities, particularly in the east of the country. Participants sometimes had difficulty complying with our programming and responding to our requests. A total of 34 interviewers and eight local supervisors were trained and equipped with Samsung tablets during the research process. The interviewers were mainly responsible for data collection, and the supervisors played the role of verifiers and validators of transcriptions and translations, as the interviews were conducted either in Lingala, the language spoken in Kinshasa, or in Swahili, the language spoken in the Kivu region.

In this data collection process, the use of principles for building mutual trust between the researcher and the actor was essential, that is, the constant search for an approach between direct explanation and a more circumspect reflexivity. The case of Mass Bokakandani, one of the GREC team in Kinshasa who worked in Limete, illustrates this point well. The researcher engaged in a more ethnographic process to extract data during an extended period enhancing both the ease of the more quantitative data collection and his own understanding.

Indeed, to successfully collect data in a field known to be dangerous, extremely deprived with high levels of criminal violence, administrative authorisation alone is not enough. And beyond a calm, reassuring approach, it was prudent to be accompanied by a law enforcement officer or a well-known local resident. The head of the district provided the research team with an officer or local resident for security. This approach spared the PDE project coordinator, on a field visit, from being stopped by law enforcement officers (commonly called ‘office 2’) who, having noticed that the research team was accompanied by local officers, relaxed and avoided the agitation that would typically be provoked by a visibly different stranger in these environments.

These field sites required a certain adaptation or metamorphosis from the team to get around the particular challenges of the environment, in order to collect the information. Even though most of the research team were students at nearby universities and originally from areas even closer to the research sites, they ultimately required a ‘chameleon’ logic involving composure, environmental strategy and metamorphosis, all the while respecting the principles of informed consent and research ethics.

The chameleon’s composure and adaptive capacity allow it to move and adapt to any environment, however dangerous that may be. By this logic, a researcher who wants to collect data in dangerous or delicate research sites requires substantial understanding and empathy in order to bring to light information relating to the research object. As for metamorphosis, we know that the chameleon changes colour in particular to communicate, adapt to the environment, camouflage and defend itself. Similarly, the researcher is called upon to develop communication that allows them to gain the trust of the respondents, and to adopt an approach that avoids threatening the respondent; this is particularly the case for clothing and language, which must be adapted to the environment.

The research team received regular requests related to various aspects of the social life of the displaced most frequently related to hiring, supporting children’s schooling, covering funeral expenses or even contributing to food expenses. In response to these requests, we carefully explained the merits of the research process, without encouraging any belief that the research would result in any discernible change for respondents personally. We also reflected the African wisdom that states that ‘where people gather, there is always a small drink to share’. Thus, at the end of each activity (focus group, survey, interview or workshop), a small sum of money was given to the participants as symbolic compensation for the time they gave us;  and in accordance with the research ethics and recommendations of the PDE project. The amount varied from US$2-4, depending on the type of activity. This was sufficient to appear fair without generating any unnecessary enthusiasm for future participation.

Relations with respondents and development of the methodological position in the field

The methodological stance adopted shaped the relationships with the respondents, including residents of research sites (both displaced and non-displaced), stakeholders and certain officials we met in the field. Over time, relationships were established after three years of research on the same sites. This situation was not easy to manage, given the expectations of the displaced persons in the face of their sometimes extremely precarious situation. A specific case deserves to be raised here: it concerns Mr Faustin (a pseudonym), a displaced person from the city of Kinkole in the commune of Nsele in Kinshasa and a returnee from Brazzaville (in the Republic of the Congo). He never accepted that the GREC (Groupe de Recherche et d’Etudes stratégiques sur le Congo) research team was not an NGO, and he often asked for help for his own association. During the first visit of the UK-based project coordinator in February 2022, we went down to Kinkole and after a session of interviews Mr Faustin gave us a document of grievances from his association, adding: ‘As the representative of “GREC London” has arrived, suitable solutions will surely be found for my association’. This example shows, if need be, the dynamism of displaced persons: despite adversity, they are not at all passive in waiting for possible support.

Victimisation is a general problem faced by many displaced people. It is often difficult to know what posture and strategy to adopt to best grasp the reality of their situation. This question raises the crucial problem of methodological vigilance. Indeed, prolonged field research has both its advantages and its disadvantages. Thus, in the problems of the two extremes in involvement, Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan (1995) advises the in-between posture. This amounts to saying that in the context of this research on prolonged displacement, the researcher should adopt a middle posture, neither minimum involvement (such as acting as the salaried researcher, the expert or the researcher passing through), nor maximum involvement (such as the anthropologist Jeanne Favret-Saada, who became a prolonged displaced person herself). This middle level of involvement suggested by Olivier de Sardan in no way hinders the participant observation that the researcher is called upon to carry out in the field to access field data and better account for the reality of the actors they are investigating. Added to this is the reflexivity and positionality of the researcher themselves. Hence the need to measure the gap created by the presence of the researcher (observer) among those surveyed (Olivier de Sardan, 2000).

Olivier de Sardan also raises the danger of the trap of ‘clique-ing’, which is the fact of being associated with a local clique, through which entry into the environment studied was made, and which would lead the researcher to become the ‘prisoner of a clique’, to be ‘the spokesperson for one group to the detriment of another’ (ibid., 1995: 74), for which unfortunately there is no miracle recipe: ‘we have to deal with it’, since ‘reality exists [well] outside the researcher, before them, during them and after them’ (ibid., 1995: 86). Faced with the same difficulties, of getting stuck in particular research relationships, Nicolas Bué (2010) developed a progressive redefinition of his object of study and the pluralisation of initial contact points with the community, then established relationships of trust with respondents. These bonds of trust created with key actors helped him to ‘maintain an acceptable distance – and variable according to the places and times – with and for the different actors involved’ (ibid., 2010). Hence the responsibility of the researcher in the production of data, which results from his interactions with reality.

To give a concrete example, a delicate situation arose in September 2021 in the small mining town of Rubaya during the baseline survey. Rubaya, a relatively remote town in Masisi territory inNorth Kivu, was one of our research sites. On the second day after the training, a rumour circulated in the town that the research team were actually a group from the mining company SMB (Bisunzu Mining Company) who had been dropped-off in town to fight against the interests of the Masisi artisanal miners cooperative, COOPERAMMA. This opposition was further inflamed by an important ethnic dimension through the latent conflict between the Hutu community, protecting the interests of COOPERAMMA, and the Tutsi community, associated with the interests of the SMB, around the exploitation of coltan. As a result, the research team narrowly avoided being attacked and were prevented from working. Had it not been for the boldness and insight of the Rubaya team to proactively explain their position, and the supportive intervention of the Masisi Military Administrator, the survey would not have taken place. We managed a risk of imaginary partiality in this conflict, and it soon became clear to residents that the research team was in no way associated with any interest in the exploitation of coltan. This public clarification allowed the investigation to continue until the end of the project, without the team being suspected of association with one side or the other in this ongoing dispute.

Site selection and community profiles

In common with other countries in the PDE project, the DRC team selected three research sites: un urban site, a (predominantly) camp site and a third site to reflect the diversity of the displacement context. The choice of the selected sites was guided by three main criteria: the research objectives, the presence of displaced persons and accessibility. Thus, three sites were selected: Kinshasa, Kalehe and Masisi (Figure 1).

Kinshasa (urban location)

Kinshasa is not usually considered a significant displacement site in the DRC and compared to the east of the country, the numbers of displaced people are relatively small. Nevertheless, there is a small population of people who fled from various regions of the DRC to the Republic of the Congo and Angola and have since returned to the capital, as well as displaced persons from Kasai.

Territory of Kalehe, in South Kivu Province (camp and self-settlement)

This site was chosen because of the presence of Rwandan and Burundian refugees and internally displaced persons, whose displacement was the result of armed conflicts, land conflicts and natural disasters. The displaced persons camps in Kalehe centre and Minova formed the focus of this research site.

Territory of Masisi, in North Kivu Province

The significant presence of Rwandan refugees and internally displaced persons, caused by armed and land conflicts, makes North Kivu an emblematic case of displacement in DRC. The displaced persons camp in Kitshanga and the small mining town of Rubaya, a crossroads for displaced persons, were the focus of research in this location.

The presence of displaced persons was initially identified thanks to statistical data from UNHCR, whose recent mapping makes it possible to visualise the scale of the displacement phenomenon in the DRC (UNHCR, 2025a).

In Kinshasa, the majority of displaced persons are from Equateur and the Mongo ethnic group. However, in Kivu, there are respectively Hunde, Hutu, Nyanga, Nande, Kumu communities, and a Tutsi minority (Masisi) and Havu, Tembo, Hutu and Twa communities (Kalehe) (Chefferie du Behave, 2019). The large Hutu community and the Tutsi minority came from Rwanda in successive waves as a result of the various conflicts that occurred in that country. Some are long-standing residents, testament to population movements in the colonial and pre-colonial eras, but the majority fled across the border during the Rwandan civil war of the 1990s and particularly the genocide against the Tutsi in 1994. In the camps, Hutu, Nyanga, Hunde and Twa are over represented.

Quantitative methods: baseline and panel surveys

Baseline survey

The study used a survey conducted using a standard questionnaire adapted to the realities of the DRC. In the three sites covered by the study, households were systematically sampled, between August and September 2021, and data collected using the Kobo application. A total of 27 interviewers participated in this first phase of the baseline survey, 10 in Kinshasa and 17 in Kalehe and Masisi respectively. In Kinshasa, the language used was both French and Lingala, the local language; while in the other two sites, the survey was conducted in Swahili, the language commonly spoken in the eastern DRC.

Access to the communities surveyed was generally easy, except in the camps (Mushonezo in Kalehe Centre; Mubimbi and Poste in Minova; Mungote in Kitshanga), where prior authorisation was required before contacting the displaced, through the camp leader, accompanied by the camp committee. Some challenges were reported, particularly concerning the complex expectations and requests made by the displaced people settled in the camps. This is one of the major difficulties that the research teams faced throughout the project, namely that most displaced people took the researchers for delegates of the NGOs responsible for providing food and non-food items.

Thus, in the first round, out of 3,431 households counted, 284 in Kinshasa, 1,475 in Kalehe in South Kivu and 1,672 in Masisi in North Kivu, only 3,305 were reached. The data in Kinshasa was collected in the communes of Limete, Nsele and Maluku. In Kalehe, the survey took place in Kalehe centre, Ihusi, Nyabibwe and Minova. In Masisi, the survey was conducted in Rubaya and Kitshanga, the chief town of the Bashali chiefdom. The baseline survey reached 12,878 people. Overall, 33% of these households were headed by a woman.

Panel survey

The second stage of the quantitative survey was carried out with a reduced sample; it took place in the three sites between May and June 2023, with the assistance of 17 interviewers, six in Kinshasa, four in Kalehe and seven in Rubaya. This second survey was intended to cover 20% of the households sampled in the first round (i.e., 661 households). However, due to the difficulties tracing some households from the baseline survey (particularly in Kinshasa) and the inaccessibility of the Kitshanga sub-site due to the armed conflicts of the M23 rebellion, this target was reduced to 229 households, distributed as follows: 57 households in Kinshasa; 42 households in Kalehe; and 130 households in Rubaya, representing the Masisi territory.

Again, data collection was carried out using Kobo Collect; but, unlike the baseline survey, the panel survey was not sampled systematically but from a randomly generated sample of those who had agree to be contacted again in baseline survey. In the field, households were identified by a QR code generated by Kobo, which preserved the anonymity of sampled households. In two sites, the survey went well, and households surveyed in 2021 were found and re-interviewed in May–June 2023; while in Kinshasa, due to the frequent movements of respondents, the research team had difficulty finding households. The QR codes referenced the contact details for households that had been provided in the baseline survey. The identification of households was one of the biggest challenges during this second phase. A larger number of households was therefore needed as a sample to reach the target required for this second phase.

Qualitative interviews

In this study, we implemented the following qualitative techniques: focus groups, interviews, stakeholder workshops, documentary films and in-depth interviews in the form of oral histories. In total, in the three sites, the DRC team conducted 12 focus groups, 206 interviews, six stakeholder workshops and one documentary film workshop. The focus groups included three target groups: women, men, youth (both sexes) and community leaders (both sexes), so four focus groups in each of the three research sites. In all contexts, just under 45% of interviewees were women. Interviews allowed for a deeper investigation into the phenomenon studied in its natural context, focusing on the meanings, experiences and perspectives of all targeted participants.

The data collected was processed and analysed using Nvivo software. A number of themes emerged from this analysis. These include: access to land, the local microfinance system, debts incurred, the role of the state and humanitarian actors, insecurity caused by armed groups, the vulnerability and resilience of communities affected by displacement, coping strategies, humanitarian assistance, cohabitation between displaced persons and host populations, and access to basic social services (health, justice, housing, education). These were all used to code the interviews in Nvivo.

Production of documentary films

Making films in the province of North Kivu seems easy if one does not know the region. Indeed, in the grip of insecurity that has lasted for more than three decades, the populations of this region experience moments of intense recurring insecurity, to the point that some displaced persons no longer even consider returning to their areas of origin, due to the shocking scenes they have witnessed there. Faced with the government’s inability to pacify the affected areas, it was necessary to make adaptations in order to carry out research activities normally, despite the occasional threat from uncontrolled elements or militias that were trying to impose a parallel administration in the areas that had fallen under their control.

In accordance with the agreed methodological approach of the PDE project as a whole, the production of documentary films aimed to restore, through sounds and images, the reality of displacement, that is to say, to film the economies of displacement. To this end, a practical documentary workshop took place in Goma, from 13–21 June 2022, and six young filmmakers, including three from Kitshanga and three from Goma, were recruited following a strict casting process. These young people underwent training facilitated by a team from QMUL, the University of Sussex and the University of Kinshasa, with the collaboration of the GREC focal point in Goma. Each team was made up of two men and one woman; the distribution of roles within each team was based on three important functions: director/producer; camera operator/sound engineer; editor. After an intense period of activity, involving two days of practical and theoretical training, three days of filming in the field in Kitshanga (team 2) or in Goma (team 1), and three days of transcription and editing, the two teams, under the direction of their mentor, Dr Yasmin Fedda, were able to produce two documentary films of approximately 5 minutes in length, on two themes of the displacement economy, namely employment in displacement situations, or adaptation in the new place of displacement. In total, two films were edited: one concerns the history of migrations (the film Migrations) in Kitshanga, and the other is related to adaptation in an urban environment with poultry farming (Stephanie and her chicks) in Goma.

At the end of this activity, a first screening of the two films was organised in Goma, attended by an informed audience, in order to provide the constructive and necessary criticism for their finalisation. The two documentaries have been finalised, after undergoing the appropriate technical treatment, and these films were shown at public screenings in all three research sites (Kalehe, Goma and Kinshasa) during stakeholder workshops, as well as in other project locations. Finally, it should be noted that the six young filmmakers recruited during this workshop had a certain degree of familiarity with filmmaking, because in just two days they were able to create two narratives that they brought to life in the two documentaries. This workshop ultimately helped to strengthen their technical skills with a view to creating creative documentary films.

Stakeholder engagement

In all three research sites, stakeholders took the project activities seriously. Given the significance of displacement across the country and the ongoing displacement that was occurring in the East (particularly North Kivu) for much of the project, displacement was recognised as a nationally important theme of research and particularly significant for the communities surveyed. Their interest was especially felt during contacts and workshops organised for this purpose, or even during other research activities, including focus groups and interviews. A stakeholder management policy was established based on a ‘power-interest’ approach to stakeholder mapping, in order to identify stakeholders’ alignment with project objectives, keep them informed and increase their interest in our various activities.

During repeated visits, such as the second round of in-depth interviews, stakeholders were cooperative and willing to engage. Local leaders who had been contacted early on in the project played an important role as mobilisers. For many, the presence of the investigators in the field allowed them to take a step back from the day-to-day reality of the responsibilities they had as political figures, responsible community members or leaders or local associations. In addition, during the activities of the PDE project, they expressed a real enthusiasm for the research process when they were given the opportunity to speak.

Although not all organisations approached replied or became involved in ourresearch, throughout the project we collaborated with many governmental and non-governmental organisations. One of the most prominent of these organisations and a key focus for our research reporting was the National Commission for Refugees (CNR), a public service under the supervision of the Ministry of the Interior with a prominent role to play in the situation of prolonged displacement in the DRC. The CNR must develop a strategic approach to alleviate the suffering of the entire displaced population and, even if its name suggests that it only deals with refugees, it is a vital government stakeholder for this project.

Key findings from the DRC

In this last part of the paper, we discuss the key findings of the study, in light of four main concepts of this research on the economy of protracted displacement, namely displacement-affected communities, feminist economies and mutual aid, sustainability, and humanitarian anchoring.

Displacement-affected communities

Situations of insecurity or natural disasters happen randomly. Faced with a threat of violence or a natural disaster, the precise location of asylum matters little. In situations of substantial population mobility, including all of our research sites in this study, the new place of residence for displaced people constitutes a new reality that both the previous residents and the new arrivals must come to live with. According to Karen Jacobsen (1996), the local absorption capacity of a host community depends on two essential variables: economic capacity and social receptivity. And this varies across urban, rural or camp locations. In an urban environment, for example, the initial arrival is hard because it is such a dramatic change for those directly involved. Host households must make dramatic changes in all aspects of their lives, their eating habits or the sharing of space. Initially, the youngest do not know how to get to school and have to help out by keeping the house in order until the others return from school. Older children and parents must find some kind of occupation to alleviate the fear of the future. The terror of the city weighs on displaced people.

This shifts as exile becomes more prolonged. According to Bazonzi and Ndala (2017: 100), ‘improving the relationships between host communities and displaced persons is, one of the surest ways to improve their access to justice in the long term.’ Similarly, ‘the prolonged exile of people, whether in camps or in urban areas without protection, has a negative impact on their human rights and their livelihoods, as well as on the security of the state.’ (Loescher & Milner 2009: 9). This leads us to agree with Sharpe and Cordova (2009) that it is important to consolidate peace in exile and to involve refugees in this process. In the eastern DRC, many Rwandan refugees (both Hutu and Tutsi) find themselves trapped by chronic insecurity across the Great Lakes region and have lost hope of returning home. Wale Osofisan and Shuna Keen (2019) argue that it is essential for this region to build a peace that can entirely eliminate structural violence.

Kinshasa provides a very different context of displacement to the sites in the east of the country. As we have said, the phenomenon of displacement is almost marginal in Kinshasa. This is particularly the case in relation to the size of the city, the concentration of displaced persons in an urban-rural commune located more than 80km from the city centre, but most significantly the historical marginalisation of displaced persons. They were deported from the Republic of the Congo in 2014 and were initially housed in an old stadium and from there were then sent to the outskirts of the city, removing them from view of other residents. The state’s desire to hide from public view any events that may delegitimise claims to control has been euphemistically termed ‘state modesty’ in the DRC. This went so far as to evict them  from the Siforzal camp (named after the former storage yards of a wood firm where it was located) in Maluku. Nsona, the head of an association of displaced women, formerly expelled from the city of Brazzaville, explained that they called their organisation ‘Women of Value’ to emphasise the fact that they did have value, in contrast to the way that they were continually treated. In their own words, displaced people have been ‘drowned in the city’. Urbanity has made their displacement quasi-insignificant and barely perceptible. The survey has shown that prolonged displacement in urban areas is indeed a reality in Kinshasa that has yet to be fully resolved.

In rural areas and in camps, the situation is different from that in urban areas. Because everything is new: the minimum support necessary is often sorely lacking. At first, charitable organisations stepped in to provide necessities, including drinking water and blankets, to protect against the frequently cold nights. On the steep slopes in the rural areas of our Kalehe research sites, for example, arable land is in very short supply and livestock is limited. A community leader in Minova, in Kalehe commented that:

As soon as they arrived, life became complicated on all sides, [and for everyone]. Whether it is on the side of the host families, or on the side of the families of the displaced, life has become complicated, which means that in any case the standard of living is falling further for both communities.

Several new local NGOs have been created by young people in the territory. They provide one way of fighting unemployment but they are also able to respond to the requests of national and international NGOs ensuring visibility of the NGOs, while waiting for the possibility of international funding.

In the Kalehe territory, the majority of displaced people have had to leave their homes as a result of natural disasters, with armed conflicts a close second. They are housed in camps, often only a short distance from their original homes. Although there is evidence of some discrimination between the displaced persons and the host populations, the two communities nevertheless coexist and are collectively impacted by the effects of prolonged displacement. In addition, regular exchanges take place between the two communities, in terms of supply and demand for services. Information from focus groups and interviews reveal practices demonstrating both cohesion and occasional tensions between the communities. This observation was also made in the Masisi territory. The displaced persons from the Mushonezo camp, for example, benefited from a gift of plots of land where they are currently settled, on the banks of Lake Kivu in Kalehe centre, thanks to the Territorial Administrator to the Mwami of Havu, the local customary ‘king’, His Majesty Shosho Ntale Frank V. Their only concern is the lack of land to cultivate and thus support themselves, as was the case in their villages of origin before their displacement. And it is precisely in the search for opportunities to work on the land that they encounter members of the host populations. This frequently leads to the stigmatisation of displaced people as poor and unemployed, but, it can also produce opportunities for day labour from local landowners, including field work, domestic work and various services at the market, at the quarry and in the street. Such encounters contribute to strengthening cohesion between the two communities.

In Kitshanga, for example, in Masisi, a resident of the displaced persons camp described the situation:

We work as day labourers… we transport rafters, planks, and other things or we go and look for day labour in private fields to earn 2,000 or 1,500 Congolese francs per day [US$0.75–1 at the time of interview, though significantly less in 2025]. In the morning, we gather in a place called mana fasha' [literally ‘God help me’ in Kinyarwanda but used in the sense of ‘God help me find something’]. Breastfeeding women are not welcome at day labour sites, as they are considered to have to spend most of their time taking care of their infants. The precariousness and physical danger of the shelters where day labourers may be offered accommodation if they are needed for more than a single day means that this is almost exclusively for men.

In both Kalehe and Masisi, there are entire communities affected by displacement. This is evident in the significant numbers of displaced people in camps in the these localities. For example, a small town such as Minova, with only 87,000 residents, has two large camps for displaced people of approximately 20,000 individuals or almost a quarter of the town’s population.^[1] Of course, displaced people with contacts in town will move directly avoiding the camp, so the total displaced population is likely to be significantly higher. The displaced people living here have been affected by a whole variety of challenges, some having fled armed clashes in Ziralo, others fleeing chronic insecurity in the highlands of Kalehe, others escaping the atrocities caused by armed conflicts in neighbouring Masisi, and still others having escaped natural disasters, including landslides along the steep slopes of the territory. In all cases, the new community that is established is transformed, affecting the lives of everyone who lives there not simply those who are displaced.

Feminist economies and mutual aid

Access to formal employment for women is almost non-existent in situations of displacement. Where paid work can be found, it involves working at a discount, as indicated by a respondent in Nyabibwe (Kalehe):

It is working, although with difficulty… there are people who take them to go work in the fields, to carry loads, but they are paid really small sums – just a pittance; so it cannot really help them to provide for the needs of their household.

However, it is important to emphasise that in a situation of unexpected displacement, it is the woman who holds the household economy. She is the first, as are her daughters, to come up with ways to boil a pot to warm the stomachs of the other members of the household. They are ready and able to make the most of all kinds of solidarity and mutual aid in order to avoid chaos. Moreover, the limited support provided by NGOs is mostly directed only towards women and children. In the east of the DRC, microfinance associations or tontines have been established in which members of the displaced persons’ camps participate. An irregular wage is obtained by some residents of the camps by renting out their labour in the fields, which are usually owned by members of the host community. Mutual aid, alongside daily agricultural labour, were the most significant sources of support reported in the survey.

Beyond predictable regular expenses, healthcare provides a real challenge, since significant expenses are often incurred with little warning. Reports of individuals struggling to pay bills and even of family members being held hostage by health care providers until bills can be paid are widespread and cause very significant distress. In certain circumstances, healthcare maybe covered through regular contributions agreed with the care providers in a form of insurance. There is also a method of accessing healthcare, using a system of pledges or credit care. It consists of convincing the care provider to administer care to the patient in exchange for a pledge or a promise to honour the bill on the due date agreed between the two parties.

In the survey, 83% of households reported giving or receiving non-financial support from friends and neighbours. This was the highest of all countries in the survey and illustrates a real density of community support and mutual aid. Interviews and observations also revealed the existence of other mutual aid practices. For example, in Rubaya, in Masisi, and in Kivu in general, there is a practice called kuhozana in the local Havu language or kukopeshana in Swahili (literally ‘lending’), which consists of women working in rotation in each other’s fields to benefit from collective support. The practice of kukopeshana was only reported by women called a komité and involved collective work at a task, which initially was the responsibility of a single woman, but is undertaken by a collective, before moving on reciprocally to other tasks. In practice, it mostly often involved collective ploughing. A group of eight to 10 women organise themselves and get together to work, ploughing each of their fields in turn; and allowing ploughing to be done quickly and well. Perhaps most significantly, kukopeshana strengthens cohesion and harmony in the community, though it is interesting that it was not reported by male agricultural workers. In addition, the related practice of rugabane is a kind of sharing of the harvest between the displaced person and the owner of the field, after renting a field, or the sharing of small livestock in the event of calving, when the displaced person has agreed to take care of the livestock as part of micro-livestock farming. These last two practices function as real catalysts for social harmony within communities affected by displacement. They do not involve the circulation of money, but they provide benefit to both parties involved.

In the suburbs of Kinshasa (Maluku), some economic niches are almost exclusively occupied by women, including displaced people. One example is the production of chikwangue, a bread-like substance made from fermented, steamed cassava. Women help produce this in a practice known as ‘pumping chikwangue’, which involves preparing the dough from freshly boiled cassava for about 2,000 Congolese francs (US$1) a day. A day’s work produces approximately 50kg of ‘pumped’ cassava dough. Another common occupation involves working in the peri-urban agriculture alongside the main highways around Kinshasa. Women are paid in kind, usually with a few bundles of vegetables in exchange for a full day harvesting from market gardens. Such work for minimal or in-kind payments is almost exclusively the preserve of women with few alternatives and households to support.

Research highlighted a range of other examples of non-financial transactions observed in communities affected by displacement. These were often described by the term raape, which means a small daily job carried out in a household where remuneration is also daily. The main activities for women may involve transporting loads of various kinds including agricultural produce from the fields to town or market or transporting sand to construction sites. This work is strictly gendered; men are mainly involved in field work. This traditional division of labour means that men are frequently in a state of idleness, because agricultural activities are periodic, and but they would never take up activities such as carrying loads from the fields, which is customarily reserved for women.

These activities may involve longer term arrangements beyond the daily raape work, such activities reported in interviews or the survey included domestic work in exchange for a minimal food ration, housework in exchange for housing, supervising a construction site in exchange for housing, tending a field or plantation in exchange for a food ration, or acting as an intermediary at the river port of Kinkole in Kinshasa to assist vendors. At first glance, these arrangements are nothing but blatant exploitation of women in situations of desperation. In some cases this is clearer than others, and sex work or survival sex may also be involved in these kind of exchanges of humanitarian support for services. Yet, in other cases, such work may arise from a genuine expression of care, an attempt on the part of the more powerful person in the exchange to find work for the person who holds less power so that a justified and dignified gift of housing can be made. Such arrangements may arise between distant family members, highlighting an uncertain set of boundaries between mutual aid, care economies and exploitation that women may be able to gain some benefit from but typically have to negotiate with great care.

Some of these examples, including kukopeshana and some savings practices show how women organise in associations rather than negotiating alone. These forms of collective organisation, developing various survival activities, create a space that allows women to develop self-esteem and confidence in their abilities. The ‘Women of Value’ network in Kinshasa is an excellent example of this. Organisations such as this, including collective field management, mini-savings cooperatives and mutual aid societies, amongst others, constitute places in which women can acquire a certain autonomy and power in the different spheres of society (family, socio-cultural, economic and even political). Women are transformed into agents of change capable of collectively challenging gender relations in their economic organisation, in their family and more broadly in their community. They acquire the ability to choose and act on their own lives, and that of collective power, of actions oriented towards social, economic and political changes. The identity of women is transformed but not without certain differences between them. We are facing a sociological upheaval in the roles of women and men within the family and society, and the development of another economic paradigm. This is often hidden within a wider pattern of impoverishment, marginalisation and exploitation, particularly of women, and it is important not to romanticise the limited examples of wider solidarity. Nevertheless, it is also important not to overlook the examples of collective organisation that highlight where and how moral economies of exchange can develop and survive, even in contexts of displacement and exclusion.

Sustainability

The high levels of mutual aid practised by displaced persons across all research sites in the DRC emphasise the limited nature of any external support from government, NGOs or international organisations. Where such external support has reached people it has made a significant difference, but people know that it cannot be relied upon. As displacement has become more protracted, support has faded even though displaced people have not been able to return. In these circumstances, the question of sustainability is ever more urgent. Across the research approaches, including the survey, interviews and discussions with stakeholders in the different sites, we saw that the factors that promote sustainability of activities in economies of protracted displacement may be summarised as solidarity and mutual aid as well as the relationships of trust that develop between residents. Indeed, the effect of sharing the same story and similar problems strengthens relationships between displaced persons and others who live around them. This sometimes motivates them to create associations or informal organisations in the form of cooperatives or financial institutions.

In Kinshasa, for example, these informal financial institutions called likelemba (a type of collective saving scheme) work well and are expanding over time. They serve not only the displaced, but also other people in the community. However, this system remains informal and has not developed into a formally constituted organisation system. This likelemba system has helped some families to find housing and the means to pay the rent, after receiving their share of likelemba. In Kivu, both in Kalehe and Masisi, village financial mutual aid associations have become larger scale and organised on an institutional basis. They include the Associations Villageoises d’Epargne et de Crédit (Village Associations of Savings and Credit, using the acronym AVEC, meaning ‘with’ in French) (IRC, 2012) and the Mutuelle de Solidarité (the Mutual Society of Solidarity or MUSO). Both play an important role in the financialisation of economies of prolonged displacement. The baseline survey found that less than 2% of residents of all research sites in the DRC had access to formal banking networks. Given this low rate of access to formal banking, it is easy to understand the significant role that these village mutual societies play in the lives of the displaced people who live in rural areas.

In Minova, in the Kalehe territory, interviews identified how women in this displaced persons camp organised themselves into an association to contribute and save money, in order to generate a fund to serve as credit for members. They were supported by an NGO called ECC MERU,^[2] which, after awareness-raising and brief financial training, offered them 50 notebooks and one safe to keep the members’ funds. This group quickly constituted itself as part of the semi-formal AVEC network. It had 50 members, all women. The president of this structure informed us that it was considered very successful and there was wider enthusiasm in the camp to join, which encouraged other women in the camp to apply to become members. This was not possible because they had exhausted their savings books and only had a single cash box to keep the money contributed by the members in a safe place. The president reported that the size of the group, limited to 50 members, worked well, ensuring that the group remained stable and viable and did not become unwieldy. Each member had to contribute at least 1,000 Congolese francs (US$0.5) each week. Members could borrow from the fund in case of a problem, subject to reimbursement at an interest of 10%. At the end of the savings cycle of one year, members shared the total pot. Depending on the exact value of weekly contributions and the interest produced during a cycle, a member could end the year with a payment of as much as 200,000 Congolese francs (US$100). According to the president, the earnings that each member of the AVEC received were used to pay for their children’s school fees, healthcare in case of illness, to create a small business (such as selling corn flour or embers), to rent a small plot of land to cultivate, as well as to meet other small household needs.

It is clear that whether for likelemba (in Kinshasa), or likirimba (in Kivu), or even the more organised practices of AVEC or MUSO (in Kivu), these financial mutual aid initiatives remain based on solidarity between members or contributors. The product of these savings has allowed several women, for example, to start and maintain a small business (selling corn flour, salt or sugar) or to rent a field, in order to generate a small income and produce subsistence food for their household. The ‘Women of Value’ association in Kinshasa is another example of such an initiative.

All these initiatives have encountered obstacles that have limited their sustainability, including limited funds, lack of support from local authorities, limited market size and a sense of hopelessness in some members of the group as their daily difficulties made it hard to make the regular saving. Similarly, in Kivu, particularly in Kalehe and Masisi, the main obstacles to the sustainability of AVECs and MUSOs are the lack of training, lack of awareness and the absence of income-generating activities to support savings. And yet, for both internally displaced people and for Rwandan refugees in the DRC, it is possible to encourage the creation and revitalisation of an exile economy. For these populations on the move, as Jacobsen (2001:1) points out, return sometimes remains improbable. This is most obviously the case in the eastern DRC, where ongoing displacement has pushed any dreams of return even further into the future.

The humanitarian anchor

The ideal of the ‘humanitarian anchor’ refers to a situation in which large humanitarian organisations develop a procurement process based on more than economic value alone (Zaman, 2018). Where institutions with substantial buying power are able to use that power to advance a set of social values, they have the opportunity to purchase goods or services from groups they may otherwise see as beneficiaries of their services. This transforms the relationship from ‘beneficiary’ to ‘service provider’ with important implications for the sustainability of the livelihoods of groups who are supported who may then be able to develop business with other organisations.

In our research sites in the eastern DRC (Kalehe and Masisi), not only was there very little evidence of humanitarian organisations performing this role, but there was little evidence of humanitarian organisations sufficiently large to be able to do this at all. This did not deter a few groups of younger people from working in these areas. There were two small research associations based in Kitshanga who had developed a business model of working remotely to conduct research: African Light in the World and Recherche Sans Frontiers. Both were run by small teams of people, most of them with personal experience of displacement, who were able to find some kind of employment. Most of their income came from international organisations, such as Oxfam, who wanted surveys conducted in these extremely remote parts of the country that presented physical and security challenges for outsiders to reach. In the interest of supporting the local displacement economy (see chapter 1 of this book), we also employed them to conduct the surveys on this research, though academic staff from universities in Kinshasa, Goma, Bukavu and the UK also visited the research locations to offer support, supervision and training. These organisations provide a particularly interesting example of the ways in which research itself can act as an anchor to provide some limited employment for people who would not otherwise have any income from outside the town.

In Kinshasa, the group ‘Women of Value’, provides a further example of the possibilities of the humanitarian anchor. The group, discussed above, was created by displaced women in Kinshasa as an expression of resilience in the face of systematic exclusion and stigmatisation. This association is the work of the solidarity they showed towards each other, after being expelled from the Republic of the Congo. They have developed small-scale economic activities, such as the purchase of plastic chairs that may then be rented out. The proceeds from renting the chairs were redistributed equally to the members, and part was paid into the fund to meet the members’ future needs: this is the case for unforeseeable problems related to death or illness. Subsequently, these women set up a small poultry farming project with a view to selling the eggs and duck meat. They went on to extend these economic activities by creating a traditional dance group for wider community entertainment. These dance performances have acted as a catalyst for their integration into the rural commune of Maluku. They had a history of mistreatment and humiliation by the non-displaced communities where they lived, but dance opened the door to their wider acceptance. They are now invited to provide entertainment at both festive and funeral ceremonies and they receive payment for their performances. They have performed during activities organised by the mayor of Maluku, highlighting the opportunity for local government to support their organisation. These dance performances offer a further example of the use of the arts as a means of wider community recognition, a form of income generation but also a way to access the budgets of larger organisations, such as local government.

The experience of the research organisations in Kitshanga and Women of Value in Kinshasa were unusual, however. It was much more common for women to work for neighbours or other community members for much lower levels of income, depending on locally based individuals and households that were themselves often struggling to get by. This included the kind of solidarity exchanges and small jobs of daily labour captured by the term raape discussed in the previous section. The question remains of how to connect these communities to the humanitarian supply chains or, in other words, how to ensure that humanitarians use goods and services provided by these communities affected by displacement to strengthen the local economy. There are limited examples of how this can be achieved remotely by the imagination and determination of these organisations. In all of these cases, the initiative for the establishment of these organisations has come from residents of displacement-affected communities, many of them directly affected by displacement themselves. These provide important examples for what may be achieved if larger organisations can adopt similar policies. Since this often includes organisations with a responsibility for the welfare of the individuals they may eventually employ this is not an especially far fetched idea. Much more can be made of these possibilities.

Conclusion: the establishment of a frugal resilience

The DRC has a huge diversity of experiences of protracted displacement, including large refugee populations from neighbouring countries and even larger populations of displaced people. Displacement is related to multiple and complex causes, including natural disasters (in Kalehe in South Kivu, for example), land conflicts, armed conflicts as well as intercommunity conflicts. These causes are aggravated by other factors such as political instability and chronic insecurity due to the presence of armed groups attracted by the illicit exploitation of natural resources, particularly in the eastern DRC. Much of this displacement is extremely protracted – going back to the mid-1990s in the case of much displacement in the east of the country. From 2022 onwards, new displacement began to occur following the resurgence of M23 rebels in the territories of Rutshuru, Nyiragongo and Masisi in North Kivu. The often violent occupations of both North and South Kivu (including the cities of Goma and Bukavu) have, at the time of writing in 2025, resulted in massive new displacements. Similarly, intercommunity conflicts in the province of Bandundu, near Kinshasa, have also brought a significant flow of displaced people to the capital. This chronic displacement of the population is perceptible in the establishment of new camps, but also in host families around the conflict zones (Goma, Bukavu, Kinshasa). The intersection of protracted displacement with new waves of violence and displacement are characteristic of the situation, particularly in the eastern DRC, which means that people who have been living in camps for as long as several decades are forced to move to new camps without any resolution of the initial displacement. This not only exacerbates the suffering of those concerned but makes longer-term resolution increasingly challenging.

Despite the precariousness of the situation and the other factors that aggravate it and contribute to the chronic displacement of populations, we have been able to note some positive repercussions of sometimes unwanted cohabitation: mutual tolerance, self-learning, resilient self-adaptation practices, informal trade, collective working of community fields, and widespread development of non-financial aid and mutual aid practices. We have also noted the emergence of new forms of frugal resilience in most areas of life, particularly in the area of cohabitation, that is to say, the relationship between the displaced person and the longer-term resident or host. This broadly refers to financial and especially non-financial transactions.

The collective agricultural practice of kukopeshana described earlier is an example, as well as forms of sharing agricultural produce at harvest or livestock production through rugabane. These are much older social practices and have not developed out of displacement but highlight ways in which poor rural communities have always developed bonds of solidarity to survive. Nevertheless, the impoverishment that displacement has undoubtedly exacerbated allow them to persist. Despite the inevitable marginalisation that they require to function, they also act as real catalysts for social harmony within communities affected by displacement.

Other survival activities that may be considered self-adaptation strategies include field work (ploughing, weeding or harvesting), work often rewarded by the payment of a ‘present’ or a survival allowance, and occasional sex work, or survival sex, which was also reported in certain places. Among the activities that maintain the lives of destitute displaced, daily labour described as raape is important. Other survival activities were mentioned during the survey: guarding, helping out in a bakery (particularly in Kinshasa); transporting various goods, such as wood, sand or parcels, in the community (in Kalehe and Masisi); working as a transporter at the market, particularly in Masisi, amongst other similar practices.

The more institutionalised practice of the financial mutual aid associations AVEC and MUSO is essential for these transactions. Indeed, they constitute informal structures for individual micro-savings and granting microcredits to displaced persons, which can allow them to create micro businesses such as very small-scale artisanal production of milk and cheese for either subsistence or sale, or even a small business (selling vegetables, embers, fruits or corn flour).

Overall, it is clear that communities affected by protracted displacement create dense webs of both financial and non-financial transactions. Non-financial transactions seem to be more important, considering the different social practices displaced populations develop to live and survive in different environments. This is the case for domestic work, work in the fields, supporting small livestock breeding and other forms of non-financial transactions that provide a means of survival for displaced households. What is clear is that such activities also benefit the well-being of the existing resident populations. Although many of these activities and networks simply allow people to survive and therefore replace what may have come from external actors in terms of humanitarian aid, there is also plenty of evidence of more sustainable, longer-term activities occurring on a small scale. The tragedy of subsequent displacements is that the ongoing crisis in the east of the country has damaged even these small-scale connections. Any external support in these contexts of new displacement must prepare for the time when it too will inevitably be withdrawn, by supporting such nascent efforts at sustainability. This chapter has highlighted some areas where this might usefully be done.

References

Bazonzi, J. M. & Ndala, J. (2017). ‘Relations entre réfugiés centrafricains et communautés d’accueil à Inke dans le Nord-Ubangi: de la brouille à la concertation’, in Cahiers du CERPRU, Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches pour la Promotion Rurale, Personnes déplacées et provision de la justice en République Démocratique du Congo, Special Issue, No. 24, April 2017, pp. 90–101.

Bué, N. (2010). ‘Gérer les relations d’enquête en terrains imbriqués. Risque d’enclicage et distances aux enquêtés dans une recherche sur une coalition partisane locale’, Revue Internationale de Politique Comparée, vol. 17, no. 4, pp. 77-91.

Guichaoua, A. (ed.). (2004). Exilés, réfugiés, déplacés en Afrique centrale et orientale, Paris, Karthala. [Citation missing from text?]

International Rescue Committee (IRC). (2012). Guide de l’animateur des Associations Villageoises d’Epargne et de Crédit (AVEC), New York, https://www.fsnnetwork.org/sites/default/files/004_AVEC_Guide-Facilitateur_Francais.pdf

Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC). (2024). Rapport Mondial sur la Déplacement Interne 2024. https://www.internal-displacement.org/publications/rapport-mondial-sur-le-deplacement-interne-2024/

Jacobs, C., & Kyamusugulwa, P. M. (2018). Everyday justice for the internally displaced in a context of fragility: The case of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Journal of Refugee Studies, 31(2), 179-196.

Jacobsen, K. (1996). Factors Influencing the Policy Responses of Host Governments to Mass Refugee Influxes. International Migration Review, 30(3), 655–678. https://doi.org/10.2307/2547631

Jacobsen, K. (2001). The forgotten solution: local integration for refugees in developing countries, New Issues in Refugee Research, Working Paper, No. 45. https://www.unhcr.org/sites/default/files/legacy-pdf/3b7d24059.pdf

Jacquemot, P. (2010). Les dynamiques de l’instabilité dans l’Est de la RDC, Revue Migrations Forcées (RMF), No. 36, République Démocratique du Congo. Past. Present. Future?, p. 6-7. https://wayback.archive-it.org/2500/20231026165606/https://www.fmreview.org/sites/fmr/files/FMRdownloads/fr/RDCongo.pdf

Olivier de Sardan, J.-P. (1995). The politics of the field. Enquête, 1, 71–109. https://doi.org/10.4000/enquete.263 

Olivier de Sardan, J.-P. (2000). The methodological ‘I’: Implication and explanation in field research. Revue Française de Sociologie, 41(3): 417-445.

Loescher, G. & Milner, J. (2009). Comprendre l’envergure du défi. Revue Migrations Forcées (RMF), 33, Le déplacement prolongé, p. 9-11. https://www.fmreview.org/loescher-milner/ 

Lututala, B. M. (2010). Le rôle de la gouvernance et de la recherche. Revue Migrations Forcées (RMF), 36, République Démocratique du Congo. Passé. Présent. Avenir ?, p. 8-9. https://wayback.archive-it.org/2500/20231026165606/https://www.fmreview.org/sites/fmr/files/FMRdownloads/fr/RDCongo.pdf 

Osofisan, W. & Keen, S. (2019). ‘Programme communautaire de prévention des conflits et de renforcement de la paix en RDC et en Somalie’, in Revue Migrations Forcées (RMF), No. 62, Vers la compréhension et la résolution des causes profondes du déplacement, p. 9–12.

République Démocratique du Congo, Province, du Sud-Kivu, Chefferie de Buhavu. (2019). Plan de développement local de la Chefferie de Buhavu 2019-2023, Bukavu, mars 2019.

République Démocratique du Congo. (2019). Province du Sud-Kivu, Plan d’action de sécurité, Territoire de Kalehe – 2019, Bukavu, janvier 2019. 

Sharpe, T. & Cordova, S. (2009). La construction de la paix dans les situations de déplacement, in Revue Migrations Forcées (RMF), 33, Le déplacement prolongé, p. 46-47. https://wayback.archive-it.org/2500/20231026165606/https://www.fmreview.org/sites/fmr/files/FMRdownloads/fr/RDCongo.pdf

UNHCR. (2025a). Refugees and Asylum Seekers from the DRC. Operational Data Portal. Webpage. https://data.unhcr.org/en/situations/drc

UNHCR. (2025b). Eastern DRC Displacement Overview March 19 2025, (March 20). Factsheet. https://data.unhcr.org/en/documents/details/115244

Zaman, T. (2018). The ‘humanitarian anchor’ a social economy approach to assistance in protracted displacement situations. HPG Working Paper, London, ODI. https://cdn-odi-production.s3.amazonaws.com/media/documents/12203.pdf

Zeender, G., and Rothing, J. (2010). ‘Tendances du déplacement en RDC’, in Revue Migrations Forcées (RMF), No. 36, République Démocratique du Congo. Past. Present. Future?, p.10-12. https://wayback.archive-it.org/2500/20231026165606/https://www.fmreview.org/sites/fmr/files/FMRdownloads/fr/RDCongo.pdf