Kananga, 16 February 2013 - The Public Information Section of the United Nations organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO) on Wednesday, 13 February 2013, organized in Kananga a round-table on "MONUSCO's presence and its implications". Nearly 200 pupils and teachers from three high schools of Kananga: Institut des Beaux-Arts, Complexe scolaire Bon Berger, Centre de Formation sociale de Katoka, took part in the debate designed to shed light on the different aspects of MONUSCO's mandate as laid out in UN Security Council Resolution 2053.

Besides enhancing the participants' understanding of the UN Mission's mandate and its support to the Congolese population, the conference sought to give pupils and teachers of Kasai Occidental a good grasp of the role of the United Nations system in their province. To that end, several examples were given to illustrate the progress made to date in bringing stability and peace to certain parts of the DRC, notably the western part which now enjoys relative calm, offering a sharp contrast to the eastern part still plagued by high levels of insecurity due mainly to the presence of several armed groups.

The Public Information officer, in explaining MONUSCO's mandate to the participants, gave first a brief overview of all the stages of the process that helped to bring peace to this part of the country, and then expounded the different aspects of the UN Mission's mandate, highlighting the protection of civilians as its top priority. He concluded with a discussion of the new configuration of the United Nations system in the province, which, he said, promotes closer collaboration between MONUSCO and UN agencies on the one hand and between the UN system as a whole and the local population on the other.

For his part, the Director of the Institut des Beaux-Arts de Katoka, Théodore Ntolo Bea, on behalf of his school, expressed his appreciation to MONUSCO for organizing this meeting. "This meeting has helped many of us to fill the gap in our understanding of MONUSCO's role," he said. Concurring, Kapongo Kitenge, a pupil in his junior year in the same high school, added: "Information sharing meetings of this type should be organized more frequently."

Lansana Dabo / MONUSCO