Carolina Alumni Review
November/December 2004

A Disparate Peace
Bronte Flecker '98 balances idealism with reality in war-ravaged Congo

Bronte Flecker has short, wavy brown hair, a stubborn smile that both welcomes and challenges, and a penchant for soaking up new cultures with twists and dips - she has graced dance floors from Havana to Chapel Hill. She has built houses in Bolivia, worked in London's financial district and traveled the world with England's secretary of international development. Now she's one of many working to bring peace to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

"I am in the Congo at a pivotal moment - when the country could sink back into war, or it could manage to pull through to elections and instate a government with some legitimacy and accountability to the people," Flecker says. "It is fascinating and challenging and an added bonus that you are trying to do helpful things."

Flecker works as a representative of the Department for International Development, the arm of British government charged with managing aid to poor countries. She seems as at ease entertaining Congolese government officials and foreign dignitaries at her home as she is flying in a small plane over certain parts of the Congo while sitting on a flak jacket, "in case the plane comes under fire from the ground below."

Most of her time, however, is spent in the relatively safer confines of Kinshasa, Congo's capital, where she works with government officials on poverty reduction strategies, police reform and election planning. She has a comfortable house on the banks of the Congo River complete with a maid and two guards, a fact that can be uncomfortable at times.

"Once you have seen camps of thousands of internally displaced people, or children with horrible disabilities from a completely preventable disease, then you understand how desperate the extremes of inequality in this world are," Flecker says. "Sixty million people have been ravaged by neglect and war ... something must be done."

Just what, though, is still the question. Until early 2003, Congo had been mired in a deadly civil war that had lasted five years, claiming the lives of an estimated 3 million people. Though cease-fire agreements have been reached over the past year, violent clashes persist. In the face of this, a transitional Congolese government takes the first steps toward becoming a stable democracy, with Flecker and her colleagues at its side.

Flecker first left home in England in 1993 when she was awarded a Morehead Scholarship to attend UNC. The scholarship not only brought her to the U.S. for the first time, its summer enrichment program offered her the chance to spend a year in Bolivia working for Habitat for Humanity.

"What impressed me was people's determination to make their lives better," she says. "And working in international development stretches your brain, your emotions, and your ability to work and engage with others."

After graduating, Flecker returned to England and worked at Goldman Sachs before switching gears again and entering the British civil service. She worked on a European Union commission and then landed the coveted position of private secretary for Clare Short, former international development secretary in British Prime Minister Tony Blair's cabinet.

"I got lucky," she recalls. "I saw the world with her - going everywhere from Sierra Leone to Pakistan and South Africa, meeting Nelson Mandela and having lunch with Kofi Annan."

Flecker devoured the opportunity, studying the intricacies of international discussion and cooperation. "Clare taught me that if you want to achieve anything you have to have 'clarity of objective.' Once she decided on something she made all roads point to that place."

Flecker went from her work with Short to a graduate development program for civil servants where she chose a concentration in international development. Then she received her assignment in the Congo.

Flecker is optimistic, but she understands that international development organizations are not saviors. She stresses that unless the leaders and the population of a country want a different future, no amount of foreign aid or intervention can effect real change.

"International Development frequently doesn't work, we get it wrong, we create perverse incentives, realpolitik smashes all efforts - so it can be incredibly frustrating," she explains.

The obstacles Flecker sees, both real and potential, are daunting: looted and deserted neighborhoods, child soldiers, "who I couldn't believe could even lift a gun let alone pull the trigger," she says, and families whose sons and brothers had been massacred.

"I try to absorb and make sense of it all, try and empathize, but you just can't because even though you are looking at it, it is so far away from your reality," she says.

Flecker admits that the uneven progress frustrates her sometimes. But any tinge of fatigue disappears from her voice when she mentions the hopeful spirit and desire for change among the Congolese.

"The transitional government is the best opportunity the Congolese have had in years to end the war and start improving their lives," she says. The appointed government leaders hail from groups previously at war with one another, and in the next two years the Congolese plan to create a constitution, hold elections and put the economy on track.

"When I talk to my driver, Jerome, about the political situation, emotions push into his voice," says Flecker. "He says, 'It's like this. It has got to work. We are tired of war. The people are strong and unanimous and President Kabila has to listen to us now. It will work. So, yes, I'm optimistic.' "
David Gerlach '98

© 2008 david gerlach | davidgerlach at yahoo dot com