by Eugenia Zorbas
CIPS Policy Brief No. 8, May 2010

  • Current Canadian policy towards the DRC is ineffective and inefficient. It can be greatly improved without necessarily committing additional financial or military resources.
  • Ottawa should champion a more coordinated, multilateral approach to all dealings with the DRC and explicitly involve all stakeholders including China.
  • Canada should refrain from funding any Security Sector Reform (SSR) activity until an assessment of whether conditions exist for “holistic SSR” is conducted.
  • Ottawa should enact legislation to clamp down on Rwandan Hutu rebel networks in Canada.
  • Canada should support mineral traceability and due diligence initiatives and pass domestic legislation to sanction violations.

pdf Full text (pdf)

Eugenia Zorbas is a post-doctoral fellow at CIPS. Her Ph.D., awarded by the London School of Economics and Political Science, examined the politics of reconciliation in post-genocide Rwanda. She is a former official of the UN Mission in the DRC.