Christian Aid's response to the North Kivu crisis

Between August and December 2008, the North Kivu province was subject to heavy fighting that led to the displacement of more than 500,000 people, in addition to an estimated 800,000 people who were already displaced due to clashes occurred in 2007 between the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC) and the rebel forces led by General Laurent Nkunda of the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CDNP), and also involving other rebel groups and local militias. After two needs assessment missions carried out in February and June 2008, Christian Aid (CA) decided to respond to the crisis through the launch of a CA appeal and the submission of a funding proposal to the Disaster Emergency Committee (DEC). Thanks to CA and DEC appeal funds, CA supported 7 projects implemented by 4 local partners, one of which being a church based organisation. The overall budget of £693,496 was aiming to fund the following projects: distributions of food, non food items (NFI) and medicines, assistance to Unaccompanied Children (UC), a food security and a water and sanitation projects, an HIV/AIDS mitigation project and two micro-credit projects. Targeted beneficiaries were internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and their host families in Goma and in the Masisi Territory. This report is based on the final evaluation of these 7 projects. The evaluation was carried out by 2 external consultants over a period of 22 days, including 19 days in North Kivu, meeting the 4 partners and interviewing beneficiaries in most of the project intervention zones.