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Agenda
The Kashala Blueprint for a New Congo
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Message from Dr. Kashala
I ran for the presidency of the Democratic Republic of Congo because of my deep concern about the despair and misery that has descended upon our country. When I was a boy growing up in Lubumbashi, I had access to health care and education that were ranked as the best in Africa. My mother and father had jobs and raised a family of 5 children who went on to become successful adults.
The Congo of my childhood has been erased. It has been erased and stolen from this generation by years of war, government corruption and the illegal exploitation of our natural resources by foreign corporations and neighboring countries. My 2006 campaign for the presidency was based upon a promise made to the Congolese people to end this tragic state of affairs.
The Congo is one of the richest countries in Africa. We are blessed with gold, silver, oil, copper, diamonds, cobalt, coltan, wolframite, abundant natural gas reserves, and timber. Our soil is the most fertile in the region and our river is the most powerful and bountiful in Africa. Despite all of the above-mentioned prospective wealth creating resources, the Congolese people are among the poorest in the world. We are sick, malnourished and jobless. Thousands of women and children are raped every day; the tiny wombs of too many little girls are destroyed before they reach womanhood. These horrific experiences leave the victims feeling betrayed, powerless and unprotected.
As a Presidential Candidate, I made a promise to Congolese citizens to do everything in my power to end the derelict governance and horrific crimes perpetrated mainly by policymakers, government soldiers, the national police, and various armed rebel groups. The underlying cause for all of the problems in the Congo is that the people have been separated from the bounty of their land. Few Congolese benefit from the diamond trade. Few honest Congolese own part of a copper mine and no honest Congolese owns an oil well. The illegal, unjust and immoral separation of Congolese citizens from the natural resources that is their birthright is a great sin and perpetuates the barbaric legacy established by the infamous King Leopold of Belgium.
Our party, the UREC, is ready to address these great wrongs. I ran for president to build a New Congo. A New Congo where every Congolese owns a share of the country’s resources and reaps the benefits of that ownership. UREC will build a New Congo where children are healthy, parents have jobs, education is free and every child in the smallest village can dream of being protected and becoming rich through honest, hard work.
When I ran for the Presidency of the DRC, I was the only candidate for President with a vision and a plan predicated on fundamental change within the country. It does not take an expert to realize that the sweeping change, to which our campaign consistently referred, is a requirement for the alleviation of human suffering that exists right now in the Congo.
We dedicated members of the UREC have to offer a multitude of practical ideas and skill sets that will help make life better for all of our people. Our vision involves dramatic and comprehensive changes to the Congolese economy and laws that will resurrect our standing as one of the strongest countries in Africa. There are those who have criticized UREC for accepting contributions from donors outside of the Congo, including the United States. It is our opinion that this is a great strength and serves as a reflection of UREC’s global support base of individuals and institutions dedicated to the reconstruction of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Our altruistic perspective stands in stark contrast to the unscrupulous foreign financial interests who have supported our political opponents and continue to exploit the human and natural resources of the Congo. My international supporters take a humane approach and hold a genuine belief that our country’s natural gifts are best used to strengthen our citizens. My domestic and international supporters believe that our country’s vast resources should be used for all of our people, not just the elites. It is for this reason that they backed the UREC’s campaign and continue to support our vision.
As a Presidential Candidate, I promised our people that all engagements with others countries, corporations, and organizations would be conducted in the spirit of transparency and would be intensely focused on the needs of the Congolese citizens. My primary responsibility will be to ensure the livelihood and peaceful existence of the Congolese people. Political stability and good governance will also create the conditions necessary to attract foreign investors to Congo. Our policies will empower local business leaders by providing them with the concrete principles based on the rule of law from which the new Congolese economy will be built.
We guarantee that every individual affiliated with the future UREC-led government of DRC is fully committed to our vision, and willing to engage in a collaborative effort to implement our national developmental policies.
My vision for a New Congo is not a dream; it is a choice. The citizens of nations around the globe have chosen, by way of electoral mandate, to take ownership of their natural resources. Your vote for me represents a burning desire to take ownership of our country and its vast resources. When the resources are harnessed for the people’s use we will alleviate the suffering of all our people strengthen the economic, political and cultural foundation of our great nation.
We can, we must, and we will reconstruct the DRC! We are very grateful to the citizens of DRC and our international friends who are diligently working with us to make this dream a permanent reality. Let’s go, together we can make it happen, now is the time for change in the Congo.
My plan for the New Congo is referred to as The Kashala 8-Point Plan for a New Congo.
You can begin by looking at our website.
Thank you to all
UREC Agenda for a New Congo
“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”
US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, second inaugural address, 1937.
During the past 20 years, Oscar Kashala has been engaged in a new kind of social activism based on strengthening human development, and treating people with respect and dignity. Through distinguished positions such as fellow, student and minority faculty member of Harvard University, Dr. Kashala has provided much needed medicine, laboratory and medical equipment to hospitals in DRC. He continues to work with other professionals to bring Congolese students to Harvard University and other institutions of higher learning in the U.S. for studies and training to facilitate the reconstruction of the DRC. More recently, he facilitated the donation of over $2 million USD worth of state-of-the art laboratory, medical equipment and supplies to the Catholic University in Butembo, DRC to enhance the research capabilities of the university. He is working with colleagues on an innovative comprehensive security plan for DRC, agricultural and water projects, waste management and sanitation projects, and the construction of emergency medical services and intensive care units to curb high mortality rates in DRC. These efforts are meant to challenge the status quo and produce tangible results. The UREC’s national agenda is rooted on a fundamental understanding of national development requirements and the importance of cultivating strong international relationships founded on a mutual commitment to the achievement of well designed objectives.
Public Administration and Governance
Public administration is the bedrock of successful nation building; its structure, quality and function are critical to the effective management of a country. Public administration is integrally linked to the maintenance of the public order by facilitating a complimentary interaction and continual enhancement of civil society, social justice and good governance.
The current public administration in the DRC is ineffective and based on outdated analytic models and implementation systems. It is characterized by innumerable back logs to the delivery of public services, neglect of public servants, and lack of accountability and transparency in government affairs. This untenable situation has created the conditions for corruption to permeate the fabric of society. Dr. Oscar Kashala and the UREC have created a plan to revolutionize the current public administration and public affairs services in DRC. At the heart of the plan is an emphasis on treating people as citizens rather than beggars, and effective monitoring of public servants to ensure compliance with a new set of work place quality standards that rely heavily on professional accountability and ethics, moral character and productivity.
We will develop and implement an efficient administrative system based on state-of-the art public information gathering systems and management tools. Our focus will include using private sector resources, innovation and organizational ideas to improve the public sector.
National Security and Defense
 National defense is a crucial aspect of the survival and development of a nation. A nation’s defense and security policy must uphold its values, interests and territorial sovereignty. The national defense and security policy must also be consistent with internationally adopted standards of human rights, democracy, and the rule of law. The UREC’s situational analysis reveals that the DRC continues to be vulnerable to many external threats, most notably invasion by foreign armies. The underlying reason for this situation is that the government is weak, and its leader’s credibility and role as a commander-in-chief has eroded due to a long existing chaotic domestic security environment. The current state of affairs is further exacerbated by the commander-in-chief’s gross inexperienced in matters of foreign policy.
Moreover, the DRC lacks a united, professional and dedicated military and police force. The fact that DRC is blessed, in terms of natural resources, has led to countless confrontations with foreign as well as local interest groups seeking to create a climate of instability and insecurity in order to exploit the country’s wealth. Thus, a shift in the national defense and security strategy is urgently required as well as new policies based on building the most professionally trained army in Africa.
Our vision of a DRC national defense system is based on the creation of a unified military capable of asserting the sovereign interest of the country and a police force equipped with the resources to effectively enforce the laws of the land. The two forces shall be enlisted in missions to defend the nation and the region in time of wars, and to maintain order and work on social projects in time of peace.
Economy
The formal DRC economy is completely dependent on foreign aid and donations. We currently rely on foreign assistance to pay for everything from teacher salaries to government utility bills. Simultaneously, there is an informal economy generating profits that fall completely outside of the DRC’s primitive taxation paradigms. According to the World Bank, the deterioration of the socio-economic situation in DRC has caused our country to retrogress to mid -1950s levels of economic stagnation. This economic retrogression is the result of too many years of wars, gross fiscal and monetary mismanagement, corruption, and lack of a coherent and transparent government policy making apparatus. To reverse this economic stagnation and reduce poverty, UREC will implement government reforms to attract legitimate investors. Traditionally, DRC has been primarily perceived as a commodity supplier—providing high-valued minerals such as gold, diamonds, tantalum, cobalt, and timber or precariously priced crops such as coffee and cocoa. This singular focus on the export of commodities, all of which are subject to volatile price fluctuation based on global demand, has significantly diminished DRC’s capacity to develop a more dynamic economy featuring vibrant industries in the areas of Manufacturing, Telecommunications, Financial Services, Automobile and Information Technology.
At the same time as we are working to create a more sophisticated economy, UREC will work tirelessly to revamp our agricultural output, rejuvenate and regulate activity in the mining sector and timber industry so that all Congolese truly benefit from the revenue generated by our natural resources. Significant resources will be devoted to infrastructure projects throughout the country resulting in the creation of millions of jobs for the Congolese people. We will empower our people by engaging them in the literal reconstruction of the Congo. They will be tasked and duly compensated for, among other things, building roads, bridges, hospitals, courthouses, erecting cellular towers, all of which are required to restore DRC’s status as an influential member of the African economic community.
Healthcare
The UREC fully recognizes that quality health care is the barometer by which all prosperous nations are judged. We believe that access to first-class health care is the birth right of all Congolese. Furthermore, UREC seeks to transcend traditional views of public health by meticulously analyzing the complex, interconnected factors that pose threats to public health and safety. Health care indicators for DRC are very poor and worsening on a daily basis as evidenced by the fact it has one of the highest infant and maternal mortality rates in the world. The number of children who die before their fifth birthday is scandalous. Access to quality care is limited to a few. Major national public health policies are lacking (e.g. cancer prevention, detection and treatment; regulations on good manufacturing practices and safety of pharmaceutical drugs; cosmetics and food; emerging infections; bioterrorism; safety of traditional medicine practices; crimes and violence, etc.). Life expectancy in the Congo is remarkably short. The death toll resulting from violence and its attendant consequences (5.4 million deaths) is the highest ever recorded in any single country, and is only second in totality to the fatalities associated with World War II. Malaria, infection from human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), tuberculosis and cancer continue to eat away at the health of our citizens on a daily basis.
To counteract this major catastrophe, national frameworks must be urgently established and enforced to integrate the medical and policy components of this all important fight against chronic diseases. This strategic step is critical to the significant reduction in the loss of life in Congo. Fixing health care in DRC requires a deep understanding of development barriers, capacity to design and efficiently implement preventative measures, and fundamentally, the ability to establish accurate projection models and outcome measures. At the present time, such core competencies in governance and related skill sets are rare among the top leaders in DRC leaving the Congolese people far too often to fend for themselves in health care matters.
Education
Education shapes the future of a nation. The human development index for DRC is 0.411, which gives the country an abysmal ranking of 168th out of 177 countries. In DRC, more than 32% of citizens can neither read nor write. Annual enrollment of young people is only 33% at the elementary, secondary and tertiary level. An underwhelming 67% of those enrolled at the elementary level actually go on to the secondary phase of their education. The education system has sharply deteriorated as the result of low government budget allocation to this sector, outdated infrastructure, and a general inability by the leadership to recognize the critical role that education plays in the development of a nation. This national crisis is exacerbated by the lack of motivation among teachers and students to produce their best in an environment where a university professor’s wage is less than $150 per month. Moreover, the lack of basic human facilities such as restrooms for male and female students greatly marginalizes the appeal of university life.
UREC recognizes that a concentrated government effort is necessary in order to reform the education sector. We must diligently address this problem by increasing the level of resources allocated to education, improving the overall quality education and educators, and creating platforms aimed at incentivizing the provision and attainment of education in the country. UREC strongly believes in the transformative power that an educated citizenry can play in the reconstruction of the Congo.
Research and Development
The power of scientific and technological innovations is a catalyst for societal transformation, development and sustainability. More exploration is needed to uncover opportunities that lie at the heart of Congo’s forests and under its soil. The country must put in place sound policies that will take advantage of the prospective opportunities presented by untapped natural resources and Congo’s unrivaled biodiversity. New discoveries can be employed to develop drugs that will cure the maladies afflicting Congolese citizens and more. In the social arena, the conflicts and extreme acts of violence provides the world community with a great opportunity to study personal and community behavior, and the drivers and triggers of violence in order to develop conflict prevention and resolution strategies that are much needed for Africa and other unstable regions worldwide.
UREC actively encourages talented Congolese individuals from the Diaspora to DRC by offering them a work environment that provides reasonable incentives, including compensation and state-of-the art facilities where ground breaking research will be conducted.
Environment
 Development has its corollaries, and chief among these is a proper management and maintenance of environmental resources necessary to ensure sustainability and long term development dividends. In DRC we face a myriad of environmental problems including: land degradation, desertification due to deforestation to fulfill local energy requirements, deterioration of biodiversity and ecosystem protection services, mismanagement of natural resources, and lack of political will and institutional capacity to develop rational policies that reconcile the interests of businesses and environmentalist. The ad hoc manners in which environmental issues are addressed in the DRC have contributed to the deepening of poverty and have greatly diminished the prospects for sustainable human development in the near future. The magnitude of the environmental crisis has only just begun to be appreciated. The consequences of environmental deterioration are grave, and hinder efforts to improve economic conditions for the poor, and deprive them of the opportunity to gain food security, fuel, shelter, medicine, and clean water. Again, these circumstances are symptomatic of a failed state that cannot reduce mortality due to inability to control diseases, and create the conditions necessary to confront conflict-emergent humanitarian crises and natural disasters.
Foreign Policy and International Affairs
 UREC foreign policy is rooted in the belief that relationships between countries should be based on mutual interests and corresponding principles. We are devoted to establishing multilateral egalitarian relationships with other countries similarly committed to the advancement of world peace, the avoidance of aggression, and attainment of social and economic freedom for all. DRC will engage the international community as advocate for an agenda that seeks peace and economic development and is founded on democratic principles, respect for national sovereignty, and promotion of international institutions and laws. UREC will work to establish a new narrative for diplomatic relationships with neighboring countries and will strongly promote its policies aimed at restoring DRC’s international reputation. In this increasingly interdependent world, we believe that global security and prosperity depends upon the coordinated execution of policies combined with international accountability, and strongly supported international law enforcement regimes.
DRC’s historical experience in the global arena has had much influence on UREC foreign policy and as such we advocate tough punitive mechanisms that deter illegal exploitation of natural resources, degradation of human dignity, and the violation of international laws and agreements. On the global economic front, UREC shall enact policies designed to fully integrate DRC capital markets and industries into the competitive international economic system. UREC foreign policy will seek the emergence of a diplomatically and economically credible DRC.
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