North Kivu has endured decades of violence, insecurity and human rights abuses. In 2025, the situation worsened sharply when the M23 armed group captured Goma, the provincial capital, putting communities already under enormous pressure under even more. International organisations struggle to operate in this environment. Roads are dangerous, access is limited, and trust is hard to build from the outside.

Our partner, Bureau de Soutien pour la Consolidation de la Paix en RDC (BS-RDC), works from the inside. The organisation launched a project to strengthen 225 local peace activists. A workshop brought 64 of those activists together to learn practical techniques for drawing up action plans and running advocacy campaigns. They then took those skills back to their networks.

The results were practical and timely. When a humanitarian convoy was attacked in Butembo, risking a surge in ethnic tensions, local activists organised an awareness-raising meeting about hate speech before the situation could escalate. In Beni, after several militia members were killed, activists launched a campaign against vigilante justice, recognising that revenge killings could destabilise already fragile communities.

These are people who know their communities well enough to act quickly and in the right way. In North Kivu, where outside interventions have repeatedly struggled to gain traction, that kind of local knowledge and courage is not a supplement to peacebuilding. It is peacebuilding.