We traveled down dirt roads near the town of Beni, in eastern Congo, close to the Ugandan border. Militias are active in the region, so our group was protected by an armed escort. Interactions at checkpoints along the road are unpredictable. In the town of Beni itself, a curfew is imposed each night at sunset.

Nearly all the homes in the area are within a few kilometers of the main road. Venturing further into the jungle is to risk attack. Women can be kidnapped and used as porters or sex slaves.

Conflict takes a toll on lives, but also on livelihoods. There is no employment in this part of the Congo other than agriculture. But decades of war helped destroy coffee production, once the main cash crop. Insecurity also makes it risky to forage in the jungle for bananas and other fruit.

But hope has come in an odd form: the world’s appetite for chocolate. Cocoa grows well in this part of the world. It can be cultivated by cooperatives, in safer areas, using environmentally sustainable methods. An even when the rebels come, they don’t steal the cocoa, which isn’t useful to them. In the Congo, cocoa isn’t just a cash crop. It is a survival crop –- a particularly resilient form of agriculture.

I was traveling to the region with the Eastern Congo Initiative (ECI), a grant-making organization founded by actor and director Ben Affleck and supported by important foundations. Ben has made eastern Congo the focus of his activism and philanthropy, earning tremendous respect from his local partners. Together –- along with Ben’s delightful mother Chris, a teacher who lives in Massachusetts -– we visited a number of cocoa farms and production facilities.

ECI is helping in two ways. It supports a partner named Greenhouse, which teaches farmers the proper techniques for growing and processing cocoa. The process is relatively complex. Cacao trees are grown in the shade. Its fruit is opened to reveal milky white seeds, which are fermented in vats before being dried. Getting each stage of production right requires training.

But an agricultural commodity needs a market. So, ECI has helped connect Congolese cocoa farmers with a Seattle-based company called Theo Chocolate. Its Founder and CEO, Joe Whinney, accompanied us on the trip. Theo sells chocolate in more than 4,000 retailers, including Whole Foods.

Joe takes a socially conscious approach to business, making sure that his supply chain is ethical and transparent. But he also pushes hard for farmers to increase quality -– particularly in fermentation and drying -– which is essential to a premium chocolate company and the key to higher incomes for farmers. Joe believes that Congo cocoa is some of the best in the world. “The cocoa here is exquisite,” he told me. “It tastes like brownies smell in the oven.” Theo Chocolate has pledged to purchase all the quality cocoa produced by local cooperatives.

So far, Greenhouse has helped organize 19 cooperatives, which benefit families including about 11,000 people. The daily income for farmers producing quality cocoa will increase from about a dollar a day to $2 or $3. Doubling or tripling their income will allow farmers to purchase metal for the roofs of their sheds, or to provide dowries for their daughters. Most of the cocoa farmers we spoke with also mentioned that increased income would pay school fees for their children.

This is not only a success story in the making; it is model for development. “So much development,” Joe says, “is like pushing on a string. Market demand is what pulls the string.” Farmers who produce marketable products are taken permanently out of extreme poverty. They find independence, self-sufficiency and dignity -– the ultimate goals of development. “This is one of the best ways to invest in Africa’s future,” argues Ben Affleck. Joe makes the point with typical enthusiasm: “Cocoa can save the world.”

Mrs. McCain, who recently signed on as a founding member of ECI, joins inaugural ECI supporters Howard G. Buffett, Humanitary United, Bridgeway Foundation, Laurene Powell Jobs and Google. ECI, an advocacy and grant-making initiative that works for and with the people of eastern Congo, tackles four main areas: support for vulnerable youth, support for victims of sexual violence, income generation projects and local peace and reconciliation programs.

Why the focus on Eastern Congo? Here’s a few facts from ECI’s website:

Check out ECI’s website and be sure to watch the video in the player above.

As 2011 approaches, most Africa observers are buzzing about the highly-anticipated January referendum in Sudan, where the South Sudanese will vote on whether or not Southern Sudan becomes Africa’s first new state in nearly 20 years.

But a second vote is also on the horizon in 2011, in a setting that is equally troubled and just as critical to US interests: the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Presidential elections (the second since the end of the civil war) are tentatively scheduled for November 2011, and local elections are being proposed for 2012 to 2013.

Earlier this week, Ben Affleck and the Center for Strategic International Studies (CSIS) hosted a panel of DRC experts and influentials to draw attention to what they believe is a window of opportunity opening up in DRC. Mr. Affleck and Jennifer Cooke, CSIS’s Africa program director, were joined by Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of African Affairs Johnnie Carson, Senator-elect John Boozman, former USAID mission director for DRC Anthony Gambino and Senator John Kerry for closing remarks.

The discussion coincided with the release of a white paper commissioned by Ben Affleck’s organization, the Eastern Congo Initiative (ECI), which calls for the US to develop a more strategic, comprehensive policy for US engagement in Congo. The US is currently drafting a plan to “promote peace and security in the Congo,” which white paper authors Spyros Demetriou and Salamah Magnuson argue should include (among other things) reappointing a US special adviser to the Great Lakes Region (a position which has been vacant since Howard Wolpe’s term ended in August), developing a US whole-of-government strategy for the Great Lakes region, working to strengthen the relationship between the DRC’s government and the international community, and engaging the US advocacy community.

Demetriou, Magnuson and ECI argue that a more targeted, comprehensive strategy in DRC will enable the US to protect its own interests in the region, maximize its leveraging power within the international community and take a leadership role in meeting some objectives. These objectives include facilitating renewed political engagement, launching a strategy to protect civilians and supporting the Congolese government’s own reform efforts, efforts that they believe are critical to putting the Eastern Congo on a path toward long-term development and democratic consolidation.

The timing for such a call couldn’t be riper. Not only is Congo entering a period of potential political and institutional reform, the US government is in the midst of revamping its partnerships with developing countries through the implementation of the Presidential Study Directive and the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review. Home to a myriad of cross-cutting US interests, the DRC is, in many ways, one of the countries that could benefit the most from a more holistic, balanced and coordinated US strategy.

Senator Kerry addressed this point in his closing remarks, noting that while a variety of initiatives have recently been launched or proposed to improve US policy in the DRC, addressing everything from conflict minerals to violence against women, transformational change in the region will require a comprehensive approach.

“These are crucial efforts,” he said, “But ultimately, the violence that characterizes Eastern Congo is a symptom. It’s a symptom caused by the weakness of local governance, by the absence of security, by the absence of rule of law. So you’re really beginning at some basic fundamentals here. And if we continue to approach the problems of the Congo in a piecemeal fashion, I guarantee you -– nothing will change.”

Listen to Senator Kerry’s remarks and the full panel discussion. The white paper and Ben Affleck’s op-ed in the Washington Post are both available on the Eastern Congo Initiative’s website.

Photo courtesy of the UCLA International Institute

Yesterday afternoon, I attended the National Democratic Institute’s global poverty panel at the DNCC. It was moderated by Gayle Smith, who’s a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

The speakers were:

Madeleine K. Albright, former U.S. Secretary of State and NDI chairman
Ben Affleck, actor, director, and advocate
Nancy Birdsall, president of the Center for Global Development
John J. Danilovich, CEO of the Millennium Challenge Account
Tom Daschle, former Senate Majority Leader and Co-Chair of ONE Vote ’08
Hernando de Soto, president of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy
Obiageli “Oby” Ezekwesili, vice president of the Africa Region of the World Bank
Donald Payne, U.S. representative
Tim Wirth, former U.S. senator, and CEO of the United Nations Foundation
James Wolfensohn, former president of the World Bank.

Josh Lozman of our policy staff is going to be sending in a post about the panel a little later.

I also took a small camera with me and shot some simple video, so I’ll post a couple clips here to give you a sense of what it was like to be in the room. The 1st is of Senator Tom Daschle answering a question about his recent trip with ONE through Rwanda.

This second one is of Ben Affleck talking about his new perspective after having visited Africa- and what he thinks that new perspective means for how we should message effectively. After, President of the Center for Global Development Nancy Birdsall talks about the incredible progress we’ve seen.

I view this as a long and ongoing learning experience to educate myself before making any attempt to advocate or “speak out.” My plan has been to explore, watch, listen and find those doing the best work with and on behalf of the people of the DRC, in an effort to give exposure to voices which might not otherwise be heard.

In short, I want to listen before speaking and learn before taking action. The “Nightline” segment airing Thursday June, 26 is an attempt to take the viewer along with me in that process.

It makes sense to be skeptical about celebrity activism. There is always the suspicion that involvement with a cause may be doing more good for the spokesman than he or she is doing for the cause.

I welcome any questions about me and my involvement, but I hope you can separate whatever reservations you may have from what is unimpeachably important about this segment: the plight of eastern Congo.

Anyone familiar with the Congo has heard the mind-numbing statistics: more than four million dead since 1998 (and many more before then), the most killed in any conflict since the Second World War. 1,200 people a day are still dying from conflict and conflict-related causes such as starvation and preventable disease.

The country languished as the second worst on the list of failed states until last year, when it bumped up a few notches (though it still ranks below Iraq and Afghanistan on many indices).

The larger war that was fought in Congo included eight countries; regional fighting and violence still continue and instability, impunity and inhumanity are rampant. There are some parts of the country where two out of every three women have been raped.

Children are still widely used as soldiers if they are boys, and as “wives” to militia soldiers if they are girls. The state exerts little authority over much of the eastern part of the country  it is controlled by at least 22 known armed groups. These elements combine to create an environment, in some parts of the country that more closely resembles the movie “Road Warrior” than a properly secured modern state. Bands of militia groups roam freely and each answer only to their own respective leader, living off the population and offering as payment the “Congolese credit card”  the AK-47.

Because these travesties have happened in relative obscurity  for example, 16 times as many people have died in Congo as have in the terrible ongoing genocide in Darfur, yet far more has been heard about Western Sudan than Central Africa  one goal here is to simply raise awareness. The hope being that a spotlight’s glare might help in a place where too much suffering has happened in the dark and also help those who are already hard at work trying to help themselves and their country.

My trip brought me to camps for people displaced from their homes, to rural hospitals, to gold mines, and even to remote operations with the United Nations designed to “sensitize” the most violent and vicious of the foreign-born militia in an effort to encourage them to return to their country of origin. I met with warlords and peacemakers, survivors and aid workers, all in an effort to try and better understand the inner workings of a terribly and yet wonderfully complex place, in the hopes of sharing that understanding with you.

I urge you to watch Thursday’s “Nightline” report. I know this place and its people will move you as they have moved me. I do not believe that we live in boxes, separated from one another by imagined boundaries. The connected human chain which binds us demands that we contribute, even if only in some small way, to the betterment of the world. Congo is a place that deserves, at the very least, our eyes and our ears.

-Ben Affleck

For more information or to get involved, visit:

Biamba Marie Mutombo Hospital and Research Center: http://www.dmf.org/ourhospital.php
Save the Children: http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/en/990.htm
Malu Malu and Goma Peace Process: http://www.amanileo.org
Stand Proud (Polio Rehabilitation Center): http://www.ipvrc.org
International Medical Corps: http://www.imcworldwide.org
Medicins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders): http://www.msf.org
Doctors Without Borders in the Democratic Republic of Congo: http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news/country.cfm?id=2290
United Nations Mission in Democratic Republic of Congo: http://www.monuc.org
Heal Africa Hospital: http://healafrica.org

Below we have the full story, as broadcast on ABC last night, broken up into 4 clips.

More than 4 million have died in the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the fighting continues today. As Ben explains, it’s a place where atrocities happen every day, but most people don’t even know.

Ben:

“This is my third visit to the region this year. I’ve been coming here to learn about the Congo because I don’t want to involve myself without first understanding what I’m getting involved in. Learning here means meeting with war lords (some accused of atrocities) spending time in refugee camps, talking with aid workers, meeting with those whose everyday is a struggle to survive. I’m not affiliated with any aid agency. I’m not any kind kind of ambassador. I’m not going to give you a history lesson. Among other reasons, I wouldn’t be qualified. I simply want to share what I’ve seen.”

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

-Virginia Simmons

Clip is below.

Source