Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has endured more than thirty years of conflict. Yet for much of the international community, it remains an afterthought. At the start of 2025, the situation worsened sharply. Renewed activity by the Rwanda-backed M23 armed group brought a fresh wave of violence, while sweeping cuts to development funding removed support that local peacebuilders depend on to keep vulnerable communities safe. The people who knew the crisis best were being left without resources and without a voice in the rooms where decisions were being made.

Those decisions increasingly involved the UK government, a significant diplomatic actor in DRC with the funding relationships and political influence to shape what happens there. But local civil society organisations had no direct route in. When UK policymakers wanted on-the-ground perspectives, they turned to international NGOs. The people living the crisis were not in the conversation.

Peace Direct worked to change that. Together with three DRC peacebuilders, Beni Peace Forum, Centre Résolution Conflits, and the National Partnership of Children and Youth in Peacebuilding, we brought local voices directly to UK government officials and the wider INGO community. Not as briefing notes passed through intermediaries, but as direct testimony from people working in communities the international system had largely overlooked.

The shift has been real. The UK government has since participated in meetings with Congolese civil society, made direct requests for local input, and hosted a roundtable at which Peace Direct was invited to speak. These are concrete signs of a change in who is considered a credible source of knowledge about DRC, and whose analysis shapes the response.

Local peacebuilders in eastern DRC have always understood their situation better than anyone arriving from outside. What they needed was the platform to say so.