Why Kenya's response to the DRC crisis will define its regional power

As Kenyans, there are many reasons to be concerned about the escalating conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). For President Ruto, the stakes are particularly high as he is the current chair of the East African Community (EAC), of which the DRC is one of the newest member states.

Further, one of his first actions after taking office on September 13, 2022, was to designate the outgoing president, Uhuru Kenyatta, as Kenya’s and the EAC’s peace mediator/envoy to the DRC conflict. Shortly thereafter, Ruto deployed a peace-keeping mission under the EAC framework.

Given, there have been a significant number of Kenyan corporations that have invested in the DRC since the country’s admission into the economic bloc on March 29, 2022. Notably, the Equity Bank Group has emerged as a leading investor, reporting huge revenue growth from its operations in the DRC in recent times.

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Taken together, these factors put to test Kenya’s bragging rights as the region's economic powerhouse. Simply put, we not only deployed boots to the ground in Eastern DRC but also the sitting and immediate former president hold strategic roles that will be crucial in attaining an amicable resolution in the DRC. Depending on how our two top leaders play their cards about this conflict, Kenya will emerge either as the strong and dependable leader of the region or get vanquished from the leading role in the geo-political and economic interests of the region.

So far, we have already suffered a humiliating assault on the Kenyan Embassy in Kinshasa. This potentially provides insights into the perceptions about Kenya’s role in the conflict by ordinary people in DRC. An Embassy is a sacred security installation that preserves the highest honour among neighbours, friends and allies at the country level.

This brings us to the central question in this article: What does Kenya stand to gain or lose from the DRC internal conflict?

Respectable economic data

In an article on the impacts of Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) on domestic investments in the East, Central and Southern Africa region published in January 2024, Esperance Nyinawumuntu and I stumbled on statistically significant negative impacts of the resource curse using data for 12 countries from the region. The DRC was among the countries in our sample.

It is interesting to note that despite the DRC’s prolonged internal conflicts, the country possesses respectable economic data and other development indicators that have been available since the 1970s. Based on data available from the World Development Indicators, we could not find data for many variables of interest for 13 other countries in the region that we had to drop from our sample. Many other countries that have had years of internal conflicts do not have documented data for key indicators.

While this observation did not form part of our formal findings in that study, a curious researcher cannot fail to wonder why DRC would have such data despite many years of conflict. Two possible scenarios would be that, one, the country still has a strong internal governance and operational resilience that’s capable of maintaining normalcy amidst the chaos, or that there are external forces that remotely control the governance structures in the country. The latter is the most likely scenario!

The www.gsphub.eu webpage documents that the DRC is presently considered the world’s richest country in terms of wealth of natural resources. Its raw mineral deposits, estimated to be over $24 trillion (Sh3,096 trillion) remain untapped. World Bank estimates the per capita income of DRC at about $610 (Sh78,690) as of 2022 and thus classified as a low-income country. The page indicates that the European Union operates a ‘Everything but Arms’ beneficiary scheme for DRC, similar to other low-income countries.

Given, that there has been a lot of controversy of what fuels the protracted conflicts in DRC. The answer will largely depend on who you ask. To some, the DRC represents a typical case of another failed African state that cannot handle its natural resource endowments for the benefit of its people. To others, foreign governments and multinational corporations fund the conflicts to exploit the country's wealth illegally.

Yet to others, even peace and humanitarian missions deployed in the country to bring order and protect lives cannot avoid salivating for the country’s wealth once deployed there. They all quickly join in the plunder and take sides between the warring camps.

For instance, the blog page, The Conversation, documents that the reasons why the recent peacekeeping mission by the EAC member states, in which Kenyan troops had taken the lead role collapsed is mistrust and lack of clear understanding of the mission's mandate. Deployed in the last quarter of 2022, the mission hurriedly exited from the country in under one year, on December 8, 2023, after the host government refused to renew the mission’s mandate.

Conflict of interest

Some of the reasons raised are that the Felix Tshisekedi government wanted a combative force to disarm the M23 forces. Others cite conflict of interest among some of the member states from the region. This has led to quite undiplomatic exchanges between President Kagame of Rwanda and his counterpart from South Africa. All this leads us to a complex web of interest that may make the people of DRC never experience peace for a long time to come.

The question now is: What benefits does Kenya stand to gain by steering a peaceful resolution at DRC given the strategic positioning of its leaders at this critical moment?

If President Ruto would step up and mediate a peaceful resolution at the DRC through this crisis, he would be extending the country's honoured legacy of a peacemaker in a troubled Horn of Africa region. This is likely to enhance the country's geo-economic and political relations with allies and friends who have national interests in the DRC.

Second, Kenya has direct economic interests in the DRC through investments from its businesses and nationals. Unlike the challenges faced in South Sudan and Somalia, Kenyan businesses appear to have made a strong start in the DRC.

The estimated 90 million population of the country has offered Kenyan businesses a good opportunity not only for growth but also to explore the possibility of transforming into multinational corporations.

Thirdly, it is a perfect opportunity for President Ruto to redeem his battered image within the African region, after aggressively attempting to brand himself as the latter-day pan-Africanists. While his earlier voyages may have angered several leaders and the African people in general, this crisis offers a good opportunity to tone down and appease diverse interested parties. This is not to forget the silently interested Western and far East powers that have a lot of stakes in DRC mostly through proxies.

However, when all is said and done, whatever actions each country may take, they must preserve the sanctity of the sovereignty of the Congolese people and their right to a dignified life. After all, it is by God’s grace that this land, for which many are fighting, was granted.