SOFEJA-RDC

In Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, years of conflict, displacement and insecurity have placed heavy pressure on communities, local organisations and public services. For national organisations working close to affected populations, locally led action is not an abstract policy debate. It is a daily practice shaped by trust, proximity, risk, limited resources and the need to respond to both immediate and long-term needs.

SOFEJA-RDC — Solidarité des Femmes et Jeunes Entrepreneurs en Afrique — is a Congolese non-profit organisation working with women, young people and community structures in fragile and conflict-affected areas. Founded in 2012 and legally authorised to operate nationally in 2022, SOFEJA-RDC works across Sud-Kivu, Nord-Kivu, Ituri and Kinshasa. Its work brings together social entrepreneurship, humanitarian action, peacebuilding, community engagement, health, education, protection and poverty reduction.

A central part of SOFEJA-RDC’s approach is the belief that women, young people and community structures should not be treated only as beneficiaries of assistance, but as actors in their own development. The organisation works through existing community structures and networks, aiming to strengthen local capacity rather than create parallel systems.

Since June 2025, SOFEJA-RDC has introduced an approach known as Résilience Communautaire Assistée — Assisted Community Resilience. This approach seeks to integrate mental health and psychosocial support into humanitarian and development programming, rather than treating mental health as a separate or isolated intervention. In practice, this means working with community leaders, families, volunteers and local structures to recognise psychological distress, strengthen mutual support and link psychosocial wellbeing with sectors such as protection, health, education, food security, WASH and social entrepreneurship.

For SOFEJA-RDC, community resilience is not only about recovery after crisis. It is also about restoring social trust, strengthening coping mechanisms, improving access to basic services and supporting people to regain agency in contexts marked by conflict, displacement and poverty. The organisation’s work shows how locally led action often requires integrated responses: food security cannot be separated from mental health; protection cannot be separated from social cohesion; and entrepreneurship cannot be separated from psychosocial wellbeing.

The experience of SOFEJA-RDC points to a wider challenge in the localisation agenda. Local and national organisations often carry deep contextual knowledge and community trust, yet they also face major constraints: limited access to flexible funding, high compliance expectations, insecurity, and the need to respond across multiple sectors with limited resources. Their work demonstrates why locally led action requires more than recognition. It requires practical changes in how partnerships, funding, risk-sharing, accountability and knowledge are organised.

Through its community-based approach, SOFEJA-RDC offers an example of how local leadership can be rooted in proximity, trust and long-term engagement. Its work also reminds international actors that resilience is not delivered from outside. It is built with communities, through existing structures, and through organisations that remain present before, during and after crises.