Conflict and corruption
In eastern Congo, corruption and conflict feed each other. Corruption finances the armed groups and prolongs the war; the war, in turn, removes the controls that keep corruption in check.
In numbers
US$17Ma month in taxes was raised by the AFC/M23 during the M23/Rwanda occupation
Source: Governor of South Kivu, April 202684%of South Kivu’s provincial revenue was lost during the occupation
Source: Governor of South Kivu, April 20261,768schools closed by the fighting in South Kivu, leaving more than 688,000 pupils out of school
Source: OCHA, quoted in February 2026How does conflict fuel corruption?
In war, whoever holds the road levies the tax. Armed groups taxed trade and the population, and illegal checkpoints remain: on the RN5 between Kamanyola and Baraka, travellers pass nearly ten barriers and pay at least 5,000 Congolese francs at each.
Years of fighting in North and South Kivu have displaced families, emptied schools and cut provinces off from the State. Inspection services, courts and audit bodies are often absent. 536 classrooms have been destroyed in 66 schools, and 104 schools are occupied by displaced people (Ministry of Education, March 2025).
How does corruption fuel conflict?
Corruption is not a side effect of the conflict: it finances it and prolongs it. Illegal taxes at checkpoints, fraud at the borders and revenue collected in cash weaken the State at the very moment it has to prove it can serve the people better than the armed groups.
After a war, a lot of money arrives quickly – reconstruction budgets, humanitarian aid, emergency health funds – while controls are weak. If posts are bought, if schools that were paid for are never built, if medicines and Ebola funds are diverted, people lose trust in the State. That anger feeds the armed groups again.
The evidence: how corruption fuels conflict in eastern DRC
Corruption fuels conflict in three ways. It pays the fighters: whoever taxes the mines and the roads can buy weapons and recruit. It disarms the State: soldiers who are not paid sell their ammunition and share the mines with the groups they are meant to fight. And it empties the public purse: money stolen at the top is money missing for the teachers, nurses and soldiers of the east, who in turn tax the population. Each link of this chain is documented.
- US$800,000
a month for the AFC/M23 from one coltan mine
Since taking Rubaya (North Kivu) on 30 April 2024, the AFC/M23 has levied US$7 on every kilogram of coltan and controlled the trade and transport of around 120 tonnes a month – at least US$800,000 a month to arm, pay and recruit fighters.
Source: UN Group of Experts on the DRC, S/2024/969, December 2024, paras. 56–66 - 798
roadblocks on the roads of North and South Kivu
At 75% of them, at least one armed actor collects the “right to pass”; the Congolese army alone is present at 47%. Six transport companies paid US$142,910 a month at the barriers of the main North Kivu roads. The road is “one of the main sources of illicit financing” of armed actors, and control over it “a key stake in the conflicts”.
Source: IPIS / DIIS, “Everything that moves will be taxed”, November 2017 - 5,000 FC
at each of nearly ten barriers on the RN5, today
In August 2026, travellers on the Uvira–Luvungi, Mwenga–Uvira and Uvira–Fizi–Baraka roads reported paying 10,000 to 50,000 Congolese francs at barriers held by Wazalendo fighters; those who refuse are mistreated. A provincial deputy asked the Ministry of Defence to dismantle the posts held by Wazalendo and FARDC soldiers on the RN5: nearly ten barriers, at least 5,000 FC at each.
Source: Radio Okapi, 4 August 2026 · Congo Quotidien, 19 August 2026 - US$50–100
the price of an army rifle sold to an armed group
In Uvira, Mwenga and Fizi territories, soldiers whose wages were months late sold weapons and ammunition to the very groups they were fighting, “thereby contributing to prolonging the conflict”. In September 2020, a battalion commander near Minembwe sold ammunition to a Mai-Mai group; 12 boxes had disappeared from the army store. AK-type rifles went for US$50 to US$100.
Source: UN Group of Experts on the DRC, S/2021/560, June 2021, annex “Diversion of weapons and ammunition by FARDC members” - 66%
of the mines affected by armed interference involve the army
Of 711 mining sites visited by IPIS between 2016 and 2018, the Congolese army was responsible for 66% of the 265 sites affected by armed interference: taxes on miners, forced labour, “protection” fees. “Resource revenues for military people can explain the inertia with regards to armed groups”: the presence of a rebel group justifies a deployment that pays.
Source: IPIS, Armed conflict, insecurity and mining in eastern DRC, December 2022 - 14 kg
of gold officially exported from Ituri in 2020, while tonnes left through Uganda
Ituri’s three registered gold comptoirs exported only 14.213 kg in 2020, while large-scale smuggling to Uganda continued; Uganda’s gold exports rose 29% in 2019 to almost 36 tonnes. In Fizi, Mai-Mai Yakutumba taxed the gold of Misisi on its way to Baraka, before it was smuggled to Burundi and Tanzania. Unrecorded gold means no royalties for the State – and a steady income for the men with guns.
Source: UN Group of Experts on the DRC, S/2021/560, paras. 100 and 169 - US$962M
of Ebola funds disbursed; US$200M accounted for
In October 2026, the Africa CDC said that US$962 million from donors had been disbursed to organisations fighting Ebola in eastern Congo, but that only US$200 million had been accounted for. Already in 2018–2020 an “Ebola business” had grown around the response: inflated per diems paid to security forces, vehicles rented at inflated prices from civil servants, jobs sold for kickbacks. Money that does not reach patients feeds anger, mistrust and attacks on treatment centres.
Source: Africa CDC, quoted by AP, 20 October 2026 · The New Humanitarian, 18 June 2020 - 20/100
the DRC’s score on the Corruption Perceptions Index 2025, 163rd of 182 countries
Corruption at the top starves the east. The Africa Progress Panel estimated that the Congolese State lost at least US$1.36 billion in undervalued mining deals between 2010 and 2012 – twice its health and education budgets combined. Money lost in Kinshasa is money missing for the soldiers, teachers and nurses of South Kivu, who in turn tax the population they serve.
Source: Transparency International, CPI 2025 · Africa Progress Panel 2013, quoted by Global Witness
How can we break the cycle of conflict and corruption?
CERC was founded in April 2017 in Uvira and Bukavu, in South Kivu, to answer one question among others: how can integrity be a sustainable response to conflict and instability in eastern Congo?
Eastern Congo is emerging from war. After AFC/M23 withdrew from Uvira in January 2026, the Government began restoring State authority in South Kivu step by step, with Uvira as the pilot city. Our Strategy 2027–2030 is built for this moment.
If the people who come back to serve the State act with integrity, if citizens – pupils, parents, patients, displaced people, traders – can follow and report what is happening, if taxes are paid digitally and published, and if every dollar of reconstruction and emergency aid is public and checked, then services come back, trust comes back, and peace holds.
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