This article deals specifically with the limitations of the performance of poverty reduction strategies, due to the ways of doing things and taking responsibility by the various stakeholders who interact in this process, including the public authorities (the Congolese State), NGDOs, technical and financial partners (TFPs), households benefiting from poverty reduction projects and their local leaders. It is the empirical method and the documentary analysis that were used with the support of direct, ordinary and participatory observations. A questionnaire survey was operationalized through individual interviews and qualified informants. The sample (simple stratified but proportional and representative) included heads of development structures (384) and heads of beneficiary households (at least 633), i.e. a total of 1020 subjects at most. In reality, the public authority (State) is less on the side of the NGDOs, leaving them to do as they wish and with no control, or without quality control, when there is any. It does not often ask for accounts on what is being done on the ground and does not follow it. Many NGDOs do not manage the resources made available to them with rigour and sensitivity, with the result that many NGDOs often miss their pre-defined development objectives, with the consequence that the living conditions of their beneficiaries do not improve. The TFPs do not assume all their responsibilities with regard to the financial and technical support they provide (audit and accountability requirements, partnership with public technical services to facilitate joint technical supervision when possible, etc.). There is also a kind of guilty silence on the part of beneficiary households and their local leaders on what is being done, irresponsible participation and sometimes even bad complicity with certain technical facilitators mandated by these NGDOs in the field. An intelligent integration of the two appropriate « upstream » and « downstream » perspectives would help to improve the performance of poverty reduction strategies in South Kivu/DR Congo.

This paper discusses the contextual factors related to the NGDO working environment that limit the performance of poverty reduction strategies. The research used empirical method and literature review with the help of direct, routine and participant observation. A questionnaire survey was based on individual interviews and qualified informants. The sample included two targets: those in charge of development structures (384) and heads of beneficiary households (at least 633), i.e. a total of 1020 subjects at most. This sample was stratified in a simple but proportional and representative manner. According to their statistical significance and Cramer's V value, factors related to gender integration, the age of clients and their level of education were the most determining factors in this performance, followed by those related to site safety versus shelf accessibility. Factors related to accountability; the quality of public governance at the site, the regularity and quality of checks on the results produced came next. The quality of resource management by NGDOs and the quality of interactions between parties came next, followed by factors related to distance and the growing poverty of clients. A vision oriented towards advocacy/lobbying and a very strong «Public-NGO-poor client partnership» but decentralizing the work, developing the capacity for socio-economic self-sufficiency and democratizing public debate on the issue, is necessary to improve this performance.