On December 4th in Washington, DC, President Trump hosted leaders from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda to sign the “Washington Accord,” a peace and minerals deal that would ostensibly bring an end to the armed conflict in the DRC and encourage new economic activity in the region. Yet the very next day in the Eastern DRC, violence escalated rapidly as armed actors advanced on villages where Women for Women International has been supporting women for years.
So, what can we make of a peace deal that is brazenly violated less than 24 hours later?
First, we welcome any efforts towards peace and are hopeful for the success of negotiations and agreements that could bring an end to the daily conflict affecting women in the DRC.
However, we had reservations about the US-brokered deals back in June, when the Trump Administration first announced this peace framework for the DRC. We were concerned then that this would be a peace process that excluded the communities and the women directly affected by the conflict, and that’s what we saw come to pass in the recently signed mineral deal. The terms of recent US-brokered peace deals ignore the thousands of women raped by armed groups, and include no mention of justice, healing, or reintegration. It contains no provisions for justice for survivors, no accountability mechanisms, and no meaningful participation from civil society or women in rebuilding.
With fighting between armed groups going on for decades in the region, it is civilians -especially women - who have been disproportionately and uniquely affected. This cycle of conflict is a crisis for the women we serve. When we surveyed over 800 women in the DRC last year, they told us that when conflict breaks out, the most common challenges facing women are separation from their family members (76% of women surveyed), loss of property and livelihoods (70%), and physical violence or abuse (60%). The recent armed conflict in the DRC has also been accompanied by a high incidence of conflict-related sexual violence, which is the worst it’s been in years. Reports of sexual violence in parts of North and South Kivu jumped by nearly 700% since early 2025. Women for Women International continues to support women survivors of war in the DRC - and our colleagues in South Kivu told us just today that violence and shooting have intensified in the last few days. This was also true back in June, after the initial US-brokered peace deal was signed. Since then, the security situation has deteriorated so drastically that, for the first time, we had to pause programs in some areas to ensure participant safety. So, despite what’s happening in Washington, the conflict has not stopped, and communities are still living it daily.
The US clearly has economic interests and leverage – they managed to get the Rwandan and DRC Presidents in a room together - and could use that leverage to bring about peace at the grassroots level. The US also has policy options, like the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Act of 2017. The WPS Act, which was signed into law by President Trump in his first term, established the “policy of the United States to promote the meaningful participation of women in all aspects of overseas conflict prevention, management, and resolution, and post-conflict relief and recovery efforts” in recognition of the research suggesting that “peace negotiations are more likely to succeed and to result in durable peace agreements when women participate in the peace process”.
In addition to women’s participation, the US WPS Act calls for the use of policy tools to address protection issues in conflict, and for the treatment of conflict-related sexual violence as a core security issue and broader violence against women as an economic barrier, as evidence suggests. Ceasefire monitoring, sanctions and financial engagement, and peacekeeping mandates could be explicitly tied to prevention and accountability for sexual violence and exploitation. The WPS Act both mandates and provides a practical framework for involving Congolese women survivors of war in the US’ diplomatic efforts and holistically addressing sexual violence in conflict to achieve more effective and sustainable security outcomes.
In our 30 years of experience in peace and security, we know that top-down peace deals do not work. These agreements are brokered far from the places and people affected by violence, and they prioritise geopolitical interests and mineral extraction over human rights. We know that peace deals are much more likely to last if they include civil society, especially women – it’s not just a nice–to–have; there is data to back that up. 99% of the women we surveyed in the DRC last year are optimistic and said they believe their lives will improve within the next 5 years, and identified the ongoing war and conflict as one of the key barriers to that improvement. This moment offers an important opportunity to match this optimism and end violence for all Congolese, but in order to seize it, women need to be meaningful participants in negotiations and processes that define and build a more peaceful future in the DRC.
Peace deals do not last – and in the case of the most recent peace deal, may break down before the ink on the deal dries - when they don’t include the communities and women affected by conflict in the negotiations. As my colleague, Vianney Dong, Country Director for the DRC, has said,
“Politicians shaking hands in front of cameras may lead to peace on paper, but it doesn’t make a peace deal that will last. If the international community truly wants to build a safer world, it must start by listening to the women who bear the cost of its decisions.”
