Background

DRC National Discourse Forum (DRC NDF) is a Network facilitating the involvement of society organizations (CSOs), the NGOs including women and media groups. The DRC Nile basin faces a great number of environmental problems including population growth and poverty through the way it aims in promoting a dialogue on sustainable and equitable Nile basin development.

DRC NDF was launched in April 2006; the NDF has 13 elected members who become its national steering committee. DRC NDF is composed of the forum main bodies namely:

• The General Assembly: The supreme body of the forum is currently made of 80 civil society organizations.
• Steering committee: This organ is composed of 13 members.
• The secretariat: This is the national coordination headed by a National coordinator (NPC)
• The National Forum: This is composed of members who join to DRC NDF media, NGOs members, Sponsors, Government representatives, Local administration, and International NGOs.

Considerations
The commission in charge of water and environment in DRC are handled by Ministry of environment at the national level which represents the DRC government in the issue of Nile which is representing by a commission called NIL CO (Nile-Commission); this is in charge of countries issue of Nile water. However, the DRC government contributed in the NBI(Nile basin initiative), is around 35,000USD and 15,000USD in addition the Equipment contribution per Year is around 450,000 USD (to support some meeting organized in DRC by NEL-TAC ,NEL-TAC,NILE-COM , Nile Day (2011) and the office rent of LEAF Project[between 2005 to 2009 ).

The DRC government develops some cooperation with the Nile countries and done activities including:

• Burundi for the exploitation of Lake Tanganyika (Fisheries, water management and transport) and Ruzizi River (electricity)
• Rwanda for exploitation the Lake Kivu (Gaz exploitation, water management and transport) and a party of Rift Albertin in which we can find the Virunga National Park in DRC and Bilunga park in Rwanda
• Uganda for exploitation the two lakes Albert and Edward (oil exploitation, transport, water management).

In DRC gaining access to the decision makers is quite difficult. The Cooperation Framework Agreement is not populated by the ministry of Environment, Members of parliament, Experts or local communities in Nile area. The population never participated in the meeting organized by the Ministry of Environment that focused on Nile basin issues (this is the cause of lack of knowledge on CFA) that take place in the Nile area; for reason given that Nile area is very far from Kinshasa capital where the environment ministry office and TAC-members are based. In addition, the DRC NDF gives her best to ensure that the local population are informed about what is going on in the issue of Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) and NBD by using such means (dialogue, forums, radio, Advertisement, newspapers and a library).

The DRC has non central agency responsible for overall coordination of environment matters; has no Environmental Impact assessment (EIA) guidelines; some laws such as the water Act are still in draft form; marginalized people are not recognized under the constitution and state control of some mining areas is weak. In general DRC has relatively weaker policy, legal and institutional frameworks for environmental governance as compared to other Nile riparian countries.

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