DRC: The Ground War Outpaces the Diplomacy

FARDC–M23 in the Kivus, the Contested FDLR Protocol, and MONUSCO’s South Kivu Question

Strategic Security Assessment | September 2026

Executive Summary

The UN Security Council meets on the Democratic Republic of Congo in September against a deteriorating security environment in the east despite sustained diplomatic engagement across three principal tracks: the US-brokered Washington Accords between Kinshasa and Kigali, the Qatar-led Doha process between the Congolese government and the Mouvement du 23 Mars (M23), and the wider International Contact Group framework.

FARDC–M23 fighting continues across North and South Kivu. Ceasefire commitments reached through the Doha and Washington processes have not translated into an observed cessation of hostilities on the ground. Civilian displacement reported abuses and deteriorating humanitarian conditions remain more reliable indicators of the current security trajectory than the volume of diplomatic activity.

The most consequential recent development on the Washington track is the 28 July government–FDLR protocol. Kinshasa presents the protocol as a mechanism for disarmament, demobilisation and cantonment consistent with its obligations under the Washington framework. Kigali disputes this interpretation and argues that the agreement substitutes negotiation for the effective neutralisation of the FDLR required under the Accords. Rwanda has additionally alleged continued or increased FDLR integration and cooperation with FARDC structures.

ASA takes no position on the competing claims in the absence of independent verification. The decisive analytical question is whether the protocol produces measurable and verifiable FDLR neutralisation. Rwandan disengagement is formally linked to progress on this issue, making implementation of the protocol a central indicator of whether the Washington process can advance.

The Doha process remains active but has yet to move decisively from procedural confidence-building into substantive settlement. The 7 August release of 15 detainees, facilitated by the ICRC, demonstrated that limited reciprocal measures remain possible. However, only two of the eight protocols envisaged under the framework have been signed. The six outstanding protocols address the issues most directly connected to a durable settlement, including state authority, security arrangements, displacement, humanitarian access, economic recovery and accountability.

MONUSCO’s possible role in ceasefire monitoring in South Kivu represents the most immediate operational question before the Security Council. Resolution 2808 permits specified verification activity under defined circumstances, but China and Russia maintain that any South Kivu deployment requires additional Council authorisation. The resulting disagreement, together with resourcing constraints, risks leaving the ceasefire architecture without sufficient independent monitoring capacity.

The central structural weakness is therefore not the absence of diplomacy. It is the lack of an integrated political and verification framework capable of translating commitments made across different negotiating tracks into observable changes on the battlefield.

Key Judgments

• The security trajectory in the Kivus remains negative. Diplomatic engagement has expanded, but ceasefire commitments have not produced a verifiable cessation of FARDC–M23 hostilities.
• The FDLR protocol is the principal near-term test of the Washington process. Its significance will depend on independently verifiable implementation rather than competing political interpretations.
• The Doha process remains active but pre-substantive. Existing confidence-building measures have maintained the negotiating channel but have not resolved the issues of territory, authority, security arrangements, displacement and accountability that constitute the core of a settlement.
• MONUSCO’s potential South Kivu monitoring role is constrained primarily by political-procedural disagreement within the Security Council, compounded by resourcing requirements.
• The principal weakness of the current diplomatic architecture is insufficient integration and sequencing between the Washington, Doha and wider international tracks. This allows parties to advance selectively in one forum while delaying or contesting commitments in another.
• Independent verification remains the critical requirement across all three tracks. Without it, ceasefire claims, FDLR neutralisation, disengagement commitments and implementation benchmarks will remain vulnerable to competing narratives.

1. The Situation on the Ground

The controlling security fact is that the fighting has not stopped.

FARDC–M23 clashes continue across North and South Kivu, and agreements reached through the Doha and Washington processes have not resulted in an observed and sustained ceasefire. Successive commitments to de-escalation have therefore created a widening implementation gap between diplomatic undertakings and battlefield conditions.

The parties continue to contest territory and maintain military positions irrespective of the diplomatic calendar. This does not mean that the negotiating processes are without value, but it demonstrates that political commitments have yet to alter the immediate operational calculations of the belligerents.

The consequences remain visible among civilian populations. The UN Commission of Inquiry on 29 June described civilians in the Kivus as “vulnerable and unprotected,” citing displacement, weakened public institutions and the complexity of the regional conflict. The High Commissioner for Human Rights on 9 July expressed concern over the effects of continuing hostilities on civilians and called for coordinated national and international de-escalation. Four UN experts on 21 July reported an increasing body of testimony concerning sexual violence attributed to M23 and called for renewed implementation of the December 2025 ceasefire.

Taken together, these findings indicate a protection environment that continues to deteriorate despite diplomatic engagement.

The conflict is also interacting with a major public-health emergency. The Ebola outbreak has reportedly reached 2,325 deaths from 4,945 confirmed cases. The WHO has warned that the response is being outpaced, while the international vaccine coordination mechanism has released 70,000 doses of the Ervebo vaccine. Questions remain regarding effectiveness against the Bundibugyo strain reported in the country.

Insecurity directly complicates epidemic response by restricting humanitarian and medical access, increasing population displacement, weakening health infrastructure and diverting administrative capacity.

The aggregate picture is therefore one of continued deterioration rather than stabilisation.

ASA Assessment

The expansion of mediation activity has not narrowed the gap between diplomatic commitments and battlefield reality.

Ceasefire declarations and negotiating milestones remain important political indicators, but civilian protection, territorial contestation, displacement and humanitarian access provide a more reliable measure of whether stabilisation is occurring.

On those indicators, the current trajectory remains negative.

2. The FDLR Protocol: The Contested Pivot

The 28 July protocol concerning the Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (FDLR) is the most consequential recent development on the Washington track.

Kinshasa presents the protocol as implementation of its obligations under the Washington Accords through the disarmament, demobilisation and cantonment of FDLR combatants under the Concept of Operations attached to the agreement.

Kigali interprets the development differently. Rwanda argues that the Washington framework requires effective neutralisation of the FDLR and views the protocol as potentially substituting negotiation and managed accommodation for that objective. Kigali has additionally alleged continuing Congolese support for the FDLR and the integration of FDLR elements into FARDC structures.

These are competing political and security claims.

ASA takes no position on either interpretation without independent evidence sufficient to establish implementation on the ground.

The analytical significance lies elsewhere: the disagreement concerns one of the central security conditions on which the Washington process is constructed.

Rwandan disengagement is formally linked to FDLR neutralisation. The practical outcome of the protocol therefore carries significance beyond the FDLR itself. If it produces measurable disarmament, separation from Congolese military structures, cantonment and effective neutralisation, it could strengthen confidence in the Washington framework. If implementation remains open-ended, incomplete or becomes indistinguishable from incorporation into other armed structures, the dispute is likely to deepen.

The International Contact Group’s 13 August position reflects this concern. By taking note of the protocol while calling for an operational plan, a realistic timeline and coordination with MONUSCO, the Group effectively shifted the emphasis from political agreement to measurable implementation.

The central question is therefore not how Kinshasa or Kigali describes the protocol, but what occurs on the ground.

ASA Assessment

The FDLR protocol is a pivotal test of the Washington process because it addresses a security commitment directly linked to Rwandan disengagement.

ASA assesses the protocol as genuinely two-edged.

Implemented through independently verifiable neutralisation, it could provide the Washington track with an operational foundation. If implementation is incomplete, contested or perceived by Kigali as integration rather than neutralisation, it could provide Rwanda with a stated security rationale for maintaining its current posture in eastern DRC and further weaken confidence in the agreement.

The operational plan and implementation timeline requested by the International Contact Group are therefore important near-term indicators.

Independent verification should remain the principal standard by which progress is assessed.

3. The Doha Track: A Step Without a Structure

The Doha process produced a tangible but limited confidence-building measure on 7 August through the release of 15 detainees, facilitated by the International Committee of the Red Cross and confirmed by Qatar.

The development demonstrated that reciprocal action between the parties remains possible.

Structurally, however, the process remains incomplete.

Two of the eight protocols envisaged under the November 2025 Doha Framework have been signed: the Ceasefire Oversight and Verification Mechanism and the Mechanism for the Liberation of Detainees.

The six outstanding protocols concern the issues most directly connected to a durable political and security settlement:

• humanitarian access and judicial protection;
• restoration of state authority;
• interim security arrangements;
• return of internally displaced persons and refugees;
• economic and social recovery; and
• justice, truth and reconciliation.

The Geneva talks underway at the time of writing represent an attempt to move negotiations beyond the procedural phase.

The distinction between the completed and outstanding protocols is analytically important.

The measures achieved so far are comparatively reversible. Ceasefire monitoring structures and detainee exchanges can support confidence and maintain communication without requiring either side to settle the core disputes over authority, territory, security arrangements, population return and accountability.

The outstanding protocols require considerably more substantial political concessions.

ASA Assessment

ASA assesses the Doha process as active but pre-substantive.

The parties have demonstrated that they can transact on limited and reversible confidence-building measures. They have not yet demonstrated comparable willingness to address the six protocols that would define an actual settlement.

The detainee release should therefore be understood primarily as maintenance of the negotiating channel rather than evidence that the underlying conflict is approaching resolution.

The principal near-term indicator is whether the Geneva process produces movement on one or more of the six substantive protocols.

4. MONUSCO and the South Kivu Question

The principal operational issue before the Security Council is whether MONUSCO can play an effective role in ceasefire monitoring and verification in South Kivu.

The mission withdrew from South Kivu in June 2024 as part of the disengagement process requested by Kinshasa in November 2023.

Resolution 2808 of 19 December 2025 limits MONUSCO’s principal area of operation to North Kivu and Ituri but provides for ceasefire monitoring and verification activity in South Kivu under specified circumstances, including where the mission determines that conditions permit and informs the Security Council.

MONUSCO has continued supporting the operationalisation of ceasefire monitoring and verification mechanisms, and deployment to South Kivu has reportedly been considered as part of that effort. The issue has also emerged in Fifth Committee consideration of proposed mission resources.

The unresolved question is primarily legal and procedural.

One interpretation is that the existing carve-out under Resolution 2808 provides sufficient authority for limited South Kivu verification activities.

China and Russia maintain that an additional Security Council decision is required before such deployment can occur.

The significance of the disagreement is operational. A mission capable of contributing to verification may remain unable to do so at the required scale unless the Council clarifies the mandate and provides sufficient resources.

ASA Assessment

ASA assesses the South Kivu authorisation issue as one of the most important operational variables in the current ceasefire architecture.

The immediate constraint is principally political-procedural, compounded by questions of resourcing and implementation capacity.

Resolution 2808 created limited flexibility for verification activities but did not eliminate disagreement over the scope of MONUSCO’s authority. That ambiguity has now become operationally significant.

Without greater clarity regarding both authorisation and resources, MONUSCO monitoring in South Kivu is unlikely to reach the scale or consistency required for credible ceasefire verification.

5. Security Council Dynamics, Sanctions and Enforcement

The July designations under the UN 1533 sanctions regime formally placed the AFC–M23 structure under additional sanctions pressure.

France, the United Kingdom and the United States proposed six individuals and two entities for designation in May. Russia subsequently placed and later lifted a hold, enabling approval in July. The designations included Corneille Nangaa, leader of the Alliance Fleuve Congo (AFC), the coalition of which M23 is the principal armed component.

The sequence provides an indication of Security Council dynamics.

Measures directed at AFC–M23 remain possible, but the process demonstrates that consensus among Council members cannot be assumed.

Similar divisions affect MONUSCO’s prospective monitoring role.

China and Russia argue that the conditions required for the mission to undertake ceasefire monitoring have not yet been fully established, that the parties themselves must first satisfy those conditions, and that South Kivu deployment requires additional Council authorisation.

France, as penholder, and several other Council members favour a more enabling interpretation that would allow the mission to contribute more actively to ceasefire monitoring.

The disagreement is therefore not principally over the desirability of a monitored ceasefire. It concerns sequencing, mandate interpretation and the conditions under which monitoring should occur.

ASA Assessment

The practical effect of the Council’s disagreement is to leave the ceasefire architecture without the level of independent verification capacity envisaged by the diplomatic processes.

The underlying difference concerns sequencing.

One position holds that improved monitoring can help create the conditions necessary for a sustainable ceasefire. The opposing position holds that the political and security conditions must first be established before MONUSCO assumes an expanded role.

Both approaches contain an internally coherent logic.

The operational consequence, however, is continued uncertainty over the mission’s ability to provide independent verification in South Kivu.

That uncertainty increases the space available for competing claims regarding ceasefire violations and makes compliance more difficult to establish objectively.

6. The Structural Problem: Three Tracks, One Conflict

The central analytical finding of this report is that the current diplomatic architecture addresses several legitimate dimensions of the conflict but does not yet function as a sufficiently integrated strategy.

The Washington process is principally concerned with the interstate security relationship between Rwanda and the DRC.

The Doha process addresses the conflict between the Congolese government and M23.

The International Contact Group provides a wider diplomatic and international framework.

Each track is individually rational.

The weakness lies in the limited integration between them.

A party can demonstrate progress in one forum while delaying implementation in another. Commitments can be interpreted as belonging to separate negotiating tracks rather than components of a single conflict-resolution strategy. Disputes over sequencing can consequently be transferred from one process to another.

The FDLR protocol illustrates the problem clearly.

Kinshasa describes the protocol as progress in implementing Washington commitments. Kigali views the same development as potentially inconsistent with the neutralisation requirement underlying the agreement.

Both positions are then reflected in the wider diplomatic process.

This fragmentation provides the parties with political room for manoeuvre but reduces the ability of mediators to establish common benchmarks for implementation.

ASA Assessment

ASA assesses that the lack of integration between the mediation tracks is increasingly becoming part of the problem, despite each track addressing a legitimate dimension of the conflict.

The existence of several forums is not in itself the principal weakness.

The greater concern is that they are not sufficiently bound together through common sequencing, measurable benchmarks and independent verification.

The most consequential diplomatic contribution available to the Security Council, African Union and other external actors would therefore be to encourage greater convergence between the processes rather than create additional negotiating architecture.

A more coherent framework would link:

• Washington security commitments;
• Doha political and military negotiations;
• FDLR neutralisation benchmarks;
• M23 ceasefire obligations;
• MONUSCO verification;
• regional disengagement measures; and
• humanitarian and civilian-protection indicators.

MONUSCO could provide an important operational verification component, but only if its mandate, resources and political backing are sufficiently clear.

Indicators to Watch

The following indicators are likely to provide the clearest evidence of whether the diplomatic processes are beginning to affect battlefield conditions:

FDLR implementation

• Publication of a detailed operational plan.
• Defined implementation timeline.
• Verified disarmament and cantonment.
• Evidence of separation from FARDC or other armed structures.
• Independent monitoring of neutralisation measures.

Washington Track

• Measurable progress on linked Rwandan disengagement commitments.
• Reduction in competing public accusations regarding FDLR support and integration.
• Functioning of agreed joint security mechanisms.

Doha Track

• Agreement on one or more of the six substantive protocols.
• Progress on interim security arrangements.
• Negotiated arrangements concerning state authority and territorial administration.
• Concrete provisions for displacement and refugee return.

Battlefield

• Sustained reduction in FARDC–M23 engagements.
• Reduced territorial contestation.
• Improved humanitarian access.
• Decline in new civilian displacement.

MONUSCO

• Clarification of authority for South Kivu monitoring.
• Council agreement or absence of objection concerning deployment.
• Allocation of necessary personnel and resources.
• Establishment of credible independent ceasefire reporting.

ASA Final Assessment

The Democratic Republic of Congo enters September with a more extensive diplomatic architecture than at earlier stages of the current conflict but with limited corresponding improvement on the ground.

The Washington, Doha and wider international tracks each address genuine components of the crisis. None, however, has yet translated political commitments into a sustained and independently verifiable reduction in violence.

The current ground trajectory remains negative. FARDC–M23 hostilities continue in the Kivus, ceasefire commitments remain incompletely observed, civilian displacement and protection concerns persist, and insecurity continues to aggravate an already serious humanitarian and public-health environment.

Three variables are likely to determine the near-term direction.

The first is implementation of the FDLR protocol. Its significance will depend on whether it results in independently verifiable neutralisation rather than on how either Kinshasa or Kigali characterises the process.

The second is whether the Doha negotiations move beyond confidence-building measures and begin addressing the six substantive protocols that constitute the core of a political settlement.

The third is whether MONUSCO receives sufficient political authority and resources to provide credible ceasefire verification in South Kivu.

The central problem is therefore no longer a shortage of diplomatic activity.

It is the absence of a sufficiently integrated framework linking political commitments, security obligations, sequencing and verification across the different processes.

ASA assesses that additional declarations or agreements will have limited effect unless they are accompanied by measurable implementation on the ground.

The principal test of progress should consequently remain observable rather than rhetorical: fewer armed engagements, verified FDLR neutralisation, movement on substantive Doha protocols, functioning independent monitoring and improved civilian protection.

Until those indicators change, the gap between diplomacy and battlefield reality is likely to persist.

African Security Analysis (ASA)

African Security Analysis is an independent analytical institution providing strategic security assessments, political-risk analysis, conflict monitoring and advisory services concerning African security environments.

The assessments and judgments contained in this report are produced independently and do not represent the position of any government, international organisation, armed actor, political movement or commercial entity.