Make Schools, Not War? Donors' Rewriting of the Social Contract in the DRC

• Published in: Development policy review Vol. 30; no. 6; pp. 681 - 701
• Main Authors: De Herdt, Tom, Titeca, Kristof, Wagemakers, Inge
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01-11-2012
• Subjects: Conflict; Congo (Democratic Republic); Democratic Republic of Congo; Donations; Education; Educational attainment; Educational policy; Intervention; Investment; Investments; Partnership; Population; post-conflict reconstruction; Public private partnerships; Public Sector Private Sector Relations; Public-private partnership; Public-private sector cooperation; Religious Education; Republic of the Congo; School administration; Schools; Social conditions; Social contract; Social policy; Studies; Sustainable development; Wages; War; Congo-Democratic Republic of Congo
• ISSN: 0950-6764; 1467-7679
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-7679.2012.00594.x

The school being one of the most important ‘faces’ of the state at the local level in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, investment in education can play an important role in reconstructing the social contract between the population and the state after violent conflict. However, this is particularly difficult since the state has largely retreated from the education sector since the 1980s, and education is now organised through public‐private partnerships with religious networks. Moreover, schools have been turned into tax units, in response to the retreat of the state and the declining wages of school administrators. This has had a clear effect on donor interventions, which, instead of changing the current system, have become part of existing configurations and led to an expansion of the current system.