The Democratic Republic of Congo says it will not attend a donor conference in Geneva next month, complaining the country is being given “a bad image”.<\/p>\n
The meeting aims to raise nearly $1.7bn (\u00a31.2bn) for what the UN has described as a catastrophic humanitarian crisis.<\/p>\n
Acting Prime Minister Jose Makila acknowledged that the country was facing an emergency but said the UN’s reaction was discouraging investors.<\/p>\n
The UN says more than 13 million Congolese need humanitarian aid.<\/p>\n
Nearly 4.5 million people are currently displaced in the country, having fled violence, it says.<\/p>\n
DR Congo is rich in mineral and other resources but is affected by armed conflicts, corruption and a political crisis.<\/p>\n
In response, the UN has declared that the humanitarian crisis facing the country is Level 3 – the body’s highest-level emergency. It organised a high-level humanitarian conference for the DR Congo in Geneva on 13 April.<\/p>\n
But Mr Makila accused the UN of overreacting and said that aid organisations were propagating a “bad image of DR Congo throughout the world”.<\/p>\n
“The Democratic Republic of Congo declines to participate in the Geneva conference,” he said.<\/p>\n
“While recognising that the country is facing an emergency situation… the activation of the top-level humanitarian emergency acts as a brake [for development].”<\/p>\n
President Joseph Kabila has been in power in DR Congo since 2001. His second and final term officially ended in December 2016.<\/p>\n
Elections have been scheduled for December this year but correspondents say it is unclear if President Kabila will give way.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Democratic Republic of Congo says it will not attend a donor conference in Geneva next month, complaining the country is being given “a bad image”. The meeting aims to raise nearly $1.7bn (\u00a31.2bn) for what the UN has described as a catastrophic humanitarian crisis. Acting Prime Minister Jose Makila acknowledged that the country was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":412627,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[107],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n