06 June 2006

Kinshasa, DR Congo: UNV volunteers attached to the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) are advancing preparations for the country’s elections scheduled at the end of July.

With the first-round of the presidential vote just eight weeks away, UNV volunteer election logistic coordinators are working with MONUC personnel and Congolese counterparts to distribute electoral kits and related equipment to the country’s 10 provinces and throughout the capital of Kinshasa. Of the 600 UNV volunteers in MONUC, around 80 are with the mission’s electoral arm.

At Kinshasa’s airport, electoral materials arrive daily from South Africa, consisting of ballot papers, ballot boxes and privacy shields. Franck Aynes, a French UNV volunteer logistic coordinator, is stationed at MONUC’s airport depot where he monitors and coordinates in-country shipping. “Every day we load the airplanes and the helicopters with hundreds of pallets and thousands of electoral equipment”, he says. “There are up to five takeoffs per day.”

Upon arrival in the provinces, the deliveries are then transported by truck and other means to villages and cities. In Kisangani, in the Eastern province, Ousmane Kandissounon, a UNV volunteer from Benin, was recently responsible for overseeing the dissemination of nearly 5,000 electoral kits. In 10 days, all of the kits were delivered to the five main towns in the province - Kindu, Kalemi, Djolu, Bokungu and Ikela.

In the Eastern city of Bukavu, security poses a major challenge in distributing election materials. Elia Varela Serra, a MONUC public information officer based in the city, says the mission is producing information leaflets to keep local populations informed of the electoral process and MONUC’s activities – a task, she says, that UNV volunteers are leading. “There is always the problem of the rebels who sack the villages,” says Varela Serra. “To prevent upsetting the population, it is necessary to explain the work that is being done for the elections, for instance, the distribution of the security equipment to the national police force.”

Alain Salesse, a French UNV volunteer who also works in logistics, is aware of the challenges faced in distributing goods in a country the size of Western Europe. Nonetheless, he is proud of his role in preparing for the upcoming elections. “Since I have been in the Congo, I have a strong feeling of being able to help the people in this important stage of their history” he says. “Without this massive logistical support, DR Congo would not have been able to establish on its own such logistics for the elections.”

The scheduled July 30 vote is the first elections in DR Congo in more than four decades. UNV volunteers, alongside MONUC and Congolese counterparts, have supported the electoral process from the beginning by registering voters, sensitizing local populations and establishing a voting infrastructure.