Awareness Raising and Problems of Protection: Evaluating the impact of active citizenship work in the DRC
From September 2015 to June 2017, Oxfam implemented a pilot project in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) designed to raise awareness among citizens and local authorities of their rights and obligations as well as support them to engage in regular dialogue to resolve governance issues, in four communities in the Équateur province: Wendji Secli, Bikoro Centre, Ingende and Bokatola.
In order to assess the impact of this work, a mixed-method quasi-experimental evaluation was carried out in 2018-2019. The results of the evaluation suggest an increase in participants' knowledge of the rights, duties, obligations, responsibilities, and processes necessary for effective governance and protection. In addition, established mechanisms allowing citizens to interact with authorities now function promptly when there is a problem to be resolved. However, there were not consistently closer relationships between communities and local authorities, in part potentially due to high attrition rates for local authorities in the targeted communities.