Church networks, peacebuilding and women’s participation in Eastern DRC and the Great Lakes Region – a mapping study

Abstract

This report (i) map the religious civil society networks, (ii) assess their role in local and regional peace processes and (iii) address the organisation of women and the promotion of issues of women, peace and security within these networks. The focus in this report is on the linkages between provincial centres and churches at village level in the vast rural areas of the Kivus where civilians continue to suffer from war crimes. The legitimacy of the church in peacebuilding at local and national levels hinges on the assumption that (i) the church leadership has a mandate based in their constituency on the ground, and that (ii) church coordinating structures in the province or at the national level have the capacity to coordinate church activities at lower levels of the church hierarchy.