### Introduction

On the last weekend of March 2009, the sleepy provincial capital of Kindu was overtaken by an influx of Congolese military personnel. Somewhere between 3000 and 6000 FARDC (armed forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo) soldiers arrived in town with orders to deploy to the forest area bordering Maniema and South Kivu provinces, near the town of Shabunda. They were there as part of Kimia II, an organised military campaign designed to drive out FDLR (Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda) rebels, the remnants of the Hutu groups that perpetrated the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. The group of soldiers that arrived in Kindu was to advance several hundred kilometres eastward, while other troops coming from South Kivu would force the rebels to retreat westward into the forest. However, the demoralised FARDC troops that arrived in Kindu, some with their wives and children in tow, had received no salary for months and had no barracks to sleep in.

The soldiers therefore relied on the only assets they had, their weapons, to prey on the local population for food and shelter. The several weeks they were in Kindu were incredibly tense, leading to international organisations giving their staff sundown curfews, the burglary of the Vodacom cellular telephone store downtown, and numerous reports of civilian harassment. It became increasingly clear that the troops had not been provided with transport to leave town and fulfil their mission, although a few did begin to walk toward the frontline, while others rode there on bicycles and motorcycles confiscated from locals. As the situation persisted, the local Catholic church grew weary of threats to the population, and the insecurity was ended only when the bishop of the Kasongo diocese sent a large truck to begin shuttling the soldiers from Kindu to their battlefront.

This anecdote raises a number of interesting questions. Weber tells us that one of the most defining duties of states is providing security, or having a monopoly of violence in a territory. However, despite having a national army which has military objectives, the Congolese state was unable to provide this most basic task of governing. The Catholic Church, not the Congolese government, ultimately provided the necessary means for the soldiers to perform their duty. As such, we are left to ponder the central questions of this article: How does social welfare get provided in Africa's weak states? How and why are faith-based organisations (FBOs) stepping in to collaborate with or fill in gaps left by a failed or weak state?

Undisputedly, more than a decade of war in parts of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (hereafter DRC) has had an immensely negative impact on both the social fabric of communities and on individual lives. However, tales of woe and destruction are not all that have arisen out of the ashes of the Congo wars. This article demonstrates how the minority Muslim community has capitalised upon this historical moment of state weakness and desperate human need to mobilise for the benefit of the larger society. Despite decades of marginalisation, discrimination, and withdrawal from political and development realms, in post-conflict DRC, Muslim associations are organising to provide social services. Although Catholic and Protestant groups, with the support of the central state, have for example been providing educational facilities since colonial times, Islamic organisations have increasingly become involved in the provision of education since the formal end of the conflict in 2002.

This article examines the involvement of the Muslim community in social service provision, especially education, supported by empirical evidence from comparative fieldwork in post-war DRC. It argues that the opportunity provided by this unique post-conflict setting encouraged the mobilisation of a heretofore withdrawn and marginalised minority population. In particular, Muslim provision of education has been possible because of what amounts to a system of hybrid governance in the Congo, where public education provision requires the cooperation and resources of both the Congolese state and faith-based organisations. This finding thus leads us to argue that the ‘failed state’ literature must be nuanced to recognise that non-state actors, such as FBOs, do not simply fill a void left by the failed state. Instead, many citizens of so-called failed states actually experience a system of ‘hybrid governance’, where social service provision is the result of state and non-state collaboration. While the phenomenon of state and non-state collaboration in service provision is also common in developed countries, the key distinction is that this article focuses on FBO provision of public education in the Congo.

State capacity in the DRC has been incredibly low for several decades, since at least the 1980s, and as a result scholars and practitioners have repeatedly labelled the DRC as a failed or extremely weak state. Joel Migdal (1988, p. 4) defines state capability as the ability to ‘penetrate society, regulate social relationships, extract resources, and appropriate or use resources in determined ways’ (emphasis in original). According to Migdal, strong states do this well but weak states have low capabilities to perform these tasks (for discussions of the DRC as a failed state in the 1990s see Young 1994 and Lemarchand 2003). The capacity of the Congolese state was eroded by over a decade of civil and regional war. However, the Foreign Policy Failed State Index for 2011 ranked the DRC as the fourth most failed state in the world, eight years after the Congo wars (1996–2002) formally ended. Herbst (2000) defines a weak state as one that is unable to prevent the movement of people, arms, finances, rebel groups, wars and resources within the territory, and is unable to protect its citizens from external threats. Much emphasis has been placed on examining the causes and consequences of state failure, but relatively little research has been done on how and via whom government functions, such as the provision of social services, are carried out in the context of state weakness. In fact, the provision of public services that are normally the purview of central governments such as security, education, health care and humanitarian relief, has increasingly become the work of non-state actors.

Posner (2004) discusses how civil society groups are often left to do the work of their state. Traditionally, ‘governmental performance entails the provision of fundamental public goods like security, basic infrastructure, education, sanitation, and public health’ (p. 237). However, when states have failed, they are unable to meet these tasks and civil society organisations are often left to assume the role of ‘substitutes’. Therefore, the provision of social services in many developing countries experiencing weakened state capacity is especially dependent on non-state actors, including international organisations, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and religious institutions or faith-based organisations (FBOs).

Several scholars have identified functional alternatives to the African state such as religious associations, specialised United Nations agencies, and groups who profit from weak state capacity.1 One recent work directly addresses this theme with empirical research carried out in Kinshasa. Giovannoni, Trefon, Banga and Mwema (2004) discuss the explosion in the number of NGOs and community associations in the capital from the 1990s onwards, reflecting people's need to survive as the increasingly dysfunctional state withdrew from their lives. They find the proliferation of these organisations has been directly linked to the failure and withdrawal of the central state and people's need to care for themselves.

Non-state actors, especially FBOs, have become important actors in governance and development. In fact, they are usually doing so with the support and encouragement of sovereign states and key political actors. Particularly in Africa, major outside donors such as the World Bank, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID), are supporting FBO participation in health care, education, environmental initiatives and poverty reduction.2 The World Health Organisation estimated that FBOs provide 30–70% of health care in Africa. The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) increasingly works in partnership with these organisations to improve AIDS prevention and treatment on the continent (PlusNews 2009). In a speech in January 2011, the USAID administrator stressed collaboration with religious associations on development projects, and described how ‘in Kenya for example, thirty percent of all healthcare services are provided by Christian hospitals’ (Shah 2011).

In addition to practitioners, scholars have also increasingly focused their attention on the role of FBOs in development. For example, Tyndale's (2006) volume compiles 13 case studies from around the world of religious associations engaging in development work, with a positive impact for local populations. Haynes, a scholar of religion and politics in the developing world and particularly in Africa, noted that because many governments in the developing world are weak, ‘there is now widespread acceptance that desired development outcomes can more likely be achieved if the energies and abilities of various non-state actors – including faith-based organisations – can be tapped into’ (Haynes 2007, p. 3). Haynes examined the developmental role of Muslims, Christians, Hindus and Buddhists across Africa, Asia and Latin America, particularly in the areas of conflict resolution, fighting poverty, the environment, health and education.

Bornstein (2003) provided an empirical case of the role of religious non-governmental organisations in Africa. Her research examines Christian NGOs operating in Zimbabwe, and the ways in which these FBOs often provide social services in sectors such as agriculture, health care and education when the state is unable to do so. Her analysis highlights the need to examine the ability of FBOs to adequately provide such services, considering their specific motivations and spiritual goals. Of key importance, she argues, is the fact that the aim of such organisations is not simply providing services to needy populations, but also obtaining religious converts.

Nishimuko's (2009) work on Sierra Leone contains many similarities to the Congolese case, with the recent end of civil war and a state lacking the means to provide adequate education or even rebuild the numerous schools destroyed during conflict. Therefore, FBOs have played an increasing role, in so much as ‘about 75% of primary schools are owned and managed by FBOs in Sierra Leone’ (p. 284). Nishimuko finds that a weakness of religious involvement in development is the possible restriction on who is provided for, but that an important strength is their earned trust of the community due to long-term interaction. She concludes ‘that when the government's ability to provide education is not adequate, collaboration between the government, NGOs and FBOs brings about effective outcomes and their involvement in development projects is vital’ (ibid., p. 293).

In the context of education in Tanzania, Mallya (2010) finds that collaboration between the state and FBOs is complicated. This is because, whilst the weak government cannot adequately provide for its people, it nevertheless insists on regulating the involvement of capable religious associations (p. 132); as this article will show, a similar dynamic is at work in the DRC today. In the late 1980s, the Tanzanian state asked for the increased involvement of NGOs, both religious and secular, in the provision of education and health. These associations rose to the challenge – by 1993, NGOs were providing 61% of secondary schools, 87% of pre-schools and 43% of hospitals in the nine regions surveyed. Recent studies show that FBO-run schools have the best examination performance (ibid., p. 143).

Jenkins (1994), in an examination of the historical role of missionaries and Christian churches in Africa, finds that religious associations have played a unique role in their provision of social services. Although their original goal was to convert colonial subjects, when faced with the poverty of such communities, missionaries acknowledged the need for development in general, not just in the spiritual realm. Therefore when colonial governments were unwilling to provide social services for their subjects, religious associations became the primary providers of education and health care. In the Belgian Congo in particular, Jenkins finds that ‘until 1946, the entire school system was composed of mission schools, with the few government-run schools staffed by missionaries’ (p. 88). Jenkins argues that contemporary service-provision FBOs have benefited from their historical experience at such tasks and long-standing infrastructure. While this may strengthen their performance compared to other non-state actors, it is important to recognise that they also differ from secular NGOs because their primary purpose is to expand their faith community.

In the contemporary post-conflict period, religious associations in the DRC have had to expand their assistance to Congolese citizens. A recent study of the role of religious networks in the country asserted ‘as the government tries to consolidate its authority and build security, faith-based organisations will continue to find themselves, perhaps, as the only actors that are capable of delivering “public goods”’ (Whetho and Uzodike 2008, pp. 73–74). As well as providing traditional services such as education and health care, religious communities have been involved in peacebuilding, for example during the 2003 Inter-Congolese Dialogue peace process, and in encouraging an end to political violence in Kinshasa after the 2006 presidential elections. FBOs played a large role in providing civic education and election preparation prior to the historic 2006 elections. They have been key actors in the rehabilitation of former combatants as well as war-devastated infrastructure such as schools, hospitals and roads. Indeed, it is difficult to talk about governance in the Congolese context without acknowledging the major role played by religious associations.

The eastern provinces of the DR Congo, despite the formal end of the conflict and the holding of elections, continue to experience insecurity and are frequently perceived as ungoverned spaces, in part because of the geographical distance from the capital. Exploring the role of Christian FBOs in governance in North and South Kivu provinces, Seay (2009) concludes, ‘in a situation of state collapse, civil society organisations [CSOs] step in to substitute for the state's role as the provider (and, in many cases, regulator) of social services. In the eastern DR Congo, that CSO is most likely to be a church’ (p. 202). This article makes a similar argument, although with regard to Muslim associations, but also seeks to highlight that FBOs do not step in to replace the supposedly ‘failed’ Congolese state, but rather work with it.

Therefore, we argue that the DRC's education sector is an example of hybrid governance. Titeca and De Herdt (2011) similarly argue that while the ‘failed state’ literature focuses on the undoubted inadequacies of the DRC government, scholars would learn more about governance in the DRC by exploring the ways in which it functions in practice. Titeca and De Herdt assert, ‘the specific case of the education sector enables a demonstration of how the Congolese state continues to survive and transform itself. As an administrative framework the state has never ceased to exist, and its role in providing public services has been redefined rather than having evaporated’ (ibid., p. 214). FBOs play an important role in the Congolese education system, as indicated by the fact that three-quarters of primary school children attend religious schools (ibid., p. 220). Although it may appear that these institutions operate independently of the weak DRC state, in reality they are part of a system of hybrid FBO-state governance. This hybrid system is analysed here to explain why Muslim FBOs, which are not discussed by Titeca and De Herdt, have increased their involvement in education as a result of the opportunity provided by the near collapse of state provision in this sector.

Indeed, scholarship on the governance functions of FBOs in the Congolese context focuses exclusively on Christian associations. This is reflective of a broader phenomenon where ‘overall … there is a lack of reliable information on Islamic NGOs in sub-Saharan Africa’ (Haynes 2007, p. 185). As such, this case study of the role of Islamic organisations in providing education in post-war DRC will provide empirical analysis of the role of Muslim religious non-state actors in social welfare provision in weak African states.