DRC-M23 Doha Peace Framework—A Long Road Ahead: Africa File Special Edition

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Key Takeaway: The Congolese government and Rwandan-backed M23 rebels signed a nonbinding peace framework roadmap agreement, but most key provisions remain unresolved, face many challenges, and are far from implementation. Negotiations will almost certainly remain fragile and drag well into 2026 as the DRC and M23 negotiate the remaining six of eight total peace pillars, especially given that neither side has much incentive to abandon their maximalist positions.

Assessment:

The Congolese government and Rwandan-backed M23 rebels signed a peace framework agreement. Senior representatives from the two sides signed the framework agreement in Doha, the Qatari capital, on November 15.[i] The Congolese and Rwandan governments welcomed the signing in separate statements.[ii] The Qatari mediation team and Massad Boulos, US President Donald Trump’s Africa adviser, saluted the signing as “an important step” to peace efforts.[iii] The African Union and several senior European officials, including French President Emmanuel Macron, also welcomed the signing on social media.[iv]

The agreement was a prerequisite to finalizing the US-backed peace agreement between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda. The United States is expected to host the Congolese and Rwandan presidents for a formal head of state signing ceremony to consummate the US-backed framework, which was initially agreed to in June, following the DRC-M23 agreement. The resolution of the M23 conflict is reportedly central to significant investment from US companies in the DRC-Rwanda border region.[v] Boulos has said previously that a sustainable deal between the two sides is the “last piece of the puzzle” to the US-led peace framework.[vi]

Figure 1. DRC Peace Roadmap

Source: Yale Ford.

The signing of the peace framework charts a path toward reaching a comprehensive, long-term deal but itself is nonbinding and does not include any new concrete agreements. The framework agreement contains eight pillars or separate negotiating tracks to address specific key issues. Two of the pillars had already been signed—the prisoner exchange agreement on September 14 and the ceasefire verification mechanism agreement on October 14.[vii] The framework outlines six additional pillars that have yet to be agreed upon: humanitarian access and judicial protection; the return of state authority and governance reforms; security; identity and citizenship and return of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees; economic recovery and social services; and a justice commission.[viii]

The two parties will negotiate the pillars one-by-one and debate the “timelines, zones, sequencing, security parameters, legal measures and provisions” necessary for implementation, according to the framework.[ix] Togo, who is the African Union representative, the United States, and Qatar, may participate as observers in the agreement’s implementation.[x] The resolution of all six additional pillars will represent a comprehensive peace deal, referred to as the Global Peace Agreement.

The framework agreement is nonbinding and does not go much further than what has already been achieved. The various categories of issues in the framework are similar to what Qatar proposed in a draft from August that both sides originally rejected. Topics of negotiation in several of the new pillars account for M23’s reported demands from earlier rounds of talks but are broad and deep-seated issues that individually could take months to negotiate. The ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreements took three months to finalize. The head of M23’s delegation in Doha said that the framework was nonbinding, would not change the lines of territorial control in the short to medium-term, and that the “path is still long.”[xi] Boulos said that the framework was a “starting point,” despite months of talks and consistent pressure from American and Qatari mediators.[xii]

Negotiations have been tense and slow, with neither side having much incentive to abandon their maximalist positions, and will almost certainly drag well into 2026. The two sides released their first joint statement on April 23, committing to dialogue and working toward a ceasefire.[xiii] They then signed a declaration of principles agreement on July 19 that had a formal ceasefire provision and several confidence-building measures that would facilitate talks on deeper issues when resolved.[xiv] Slow progress in negotiating the ceasefire and prisoner exchange and mutual accusations of violating the ceasefire meant that they did not discuss extensively the more fundamental aspects—or the “root causes”—of the conflict in successive rounds of talks.

The DRC has maintained a maximalist negotiating stance throughout the talks partially because M23 does not pose a direct military threat to the Congolese government. CTP has assessed that DRC President Félix Tshisekedi is managing the risk of a coup linked to the M23 conflict, but the group does not pose a direct military threat.[xv] M23 would have to advance roughly 500 miles to reach the DRC’s economic engine in the mineral-rich southern region and nearly 1,000 miles to Kinshasa, the Congolese capital, across poor roads.

M23 has similarly refused to budge from its maximalist stance, as it has spent most of 2025 strengthening its leverage through building a de facto autonomous region in the eastern DRC. [xvi] M23 has focused inward as it has not faced an external military threat to its control of the Kivus since its early 2025 offensive or pressure from Rwanda to agree to demobilize and withdraw. Many of M23’s state-building efforts overlap with the objectives and end goal of the six additional pillars in the framework agreement. An entrenched M23 administration would be even more intractable and able to push for a greater role in any future deal that sees M23 gradually incorporated into the Congolese government. M23’s control over the eastern DRC aligns with Rwanda’s long-term strategy to protect and strengthen its political and economic influence and establish a buffer zone on the border with Rwanda.

Read CTP’s full report on M23’s parallel administration efforts in M23’s State-Building Project: Africa File Special Edition.

Continued disagreements on contentious issues could drag pillar negotiations well into 2026. Immediate and long-term challenges remain to peace efforts as the two sides begin the process of negotiating and implementing the November 15 framework. Both the ceasefire and prisoner exchange mechanisms have not yet even been implemented, the latter being stalled over technicalities.[xvii] The ceasefire mechanism committee has met only once on November 5, and clashes continue between M23 and pro-Congolese government forces on the ground.[xviii] The next round of talks will not happen until November 29, when the two sides committed to reconvene to restart negotiations.[xix] M23 has meanwhile showed no indication of slowing down its expansive efforts to construct a parallel state with Rwandan backing in the east.

Both sides have already disagreed strongly on how to deal with the first pillar of addressing the humanitarian crisis, which deals with a plan to reconstruct the eastern DRC and the issue of land access in M23-controlled areas. The framework committed the parties to protect civilians and facilitate “unimpeded, safe and sustainable humanitarian access, protection of humanitarian personnel and facilitation of essential services” in conflict-affected areas.[xx] The Congolese government committed to declare a “state of humanitarian emergency” in areas affected by armed conflict, presumably also referring to Ituri province in northeastern DRC.[xxi] The provision mirrors an earlier M23 demand for the government to recognize M23’s control as a “special ‘disaster zone’ status” in the eastern DRC, legally acknowledging that the government has lost control and failed to protect civilians.[xxii] The framework says that the two sides will negotiate and seek to establish a “special pacification and reconstruction program” in pillar discussions, likely referring to civil programs such as land reform and infrastructure development.[xxiii]

M23 has refused to reopen two airports under its control in North and South Kivu that are vital for humanitarian access and regional movement, likely viewing them as bargaining chips.[xxiv]  M23 has not reopened the Kavumu airport near Bukavu—the South Kivu provincial capital—for civilian use despite an announcement in late April.[xxv] M23 has not yet restored the airport in Goma—the North Kivu provincial capital—either, despite claiming on multiple occasions in 2025 that it planned to reopen it soon.[xxvi] The Congolese government has tried to control the reopening of the airports. France and the DRC announced their gradual reopening in late October but stipulated that it would happen “solely upon [its] authorization.”[xxvii] Tshisekedi ordered his cabinet to begin preparations to reopen the Goma airport on November 14.[xxviii] M23 and Rwanda have repeatedly rejected unilateral efforts to reopen the airports, however, and conditioned their reopening on progress on security and social service issues through the Doha process.[xxix]

Figure 2. M23 Focuses on Infrastructure

Source: Yale Ford.

M23 and Rwanda likely oppose the reopening of the airport at least partially to counter the FARDC’s air capabilities. M23 has stated repeatedly that it closed the airspace around population centers to “protect civilians” against repeated FARDC air strikes in M23-controlled areas. The FARDC has escalated an air interdiction campaign against M23 since mid-October, targeting M23’s frontline positions but also in its strongholds.[xxx]

Both sides have continued to blame each other for the crisis and pursued their own efforts, undermining a coordinated solution. Tshisekedi said that the humanitarian crisis in the eastern DRC is “directly linked” to M23’s military actions and Rwanda’s support for the group.[xxxi] M23 has blamed the government’s poor governance and military campaigns as the root cause of the crisis and accused the UN and humanitarian organizations of allying with the FARDC against M23 and supporting the Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (FDLR)—an ethnic Hutu armed group with ties to the 1994 Rwandan genocide. M23 repeated its position that only it can open the Goma airport after France and the DRC raised more than $1.7 billion dollars in support of humanitarian efforts in the DRC and the reopening of the airport in late October.[xxxii] The group has tried to tightly control humanitarian organizations’ activities and access to areas that it controls and is pursuing its own land reform and infrastructure investment programs in the Kivus.[xxxiii]

The second pillar—the return of state authority—will almost certainly be a major sticking point in the months ahead because the two sides interpret it in incompatible ways. The DRC and M23 had agreed in principle to this pillar, which Boulos called “one of the most important clauses,” in the initial July agreement.[xxxiv] The two sides agreed to the “full reestablishment” of Congolese government authority, institutions, and services “throughout the national territory” in the framework.[xxxv] The framework agreement says that the two sides will discuss the actors, procedures, and timetable for the return of state authority in pillar negotiations, factoring in the input of local and customary authorities when relevant.[xxxvi]

The framework also details governance reforms, which M23 had demanded in August.[xxxvii] The two sides will negotiate the particulars of the reforms during pillar negotiations.[xxxviii] The framework also stipulates that the two sides will try to hold legislative and local elections “if conditions permit” in the future.[xxxix] The August Qatari-led draft had proposed that the Congolese government would appoint interim authorities in M23-held areas at the local level with input from M23 and that both sides would toward organizing elections by 2027.[xl]

The two sides interpret the return of state authority in radically different ways. The issue has reportedly been a significant point of disagreement in several rounds of Qatari-mediated talks after the initial July agreement.[xli] The Congolese government has repeatedly demanded M23’s withdrawal since talks began in March and said that the provision means M23’s “nonnegotiable” withdrawal.[xlii] M23 clearly has no intention to withdraw, however, and has rejected any interpretation that suggests it will forego control and vacate territory. M23 has said that it is “the State” in the Kivus and views the provision as extending competent governance “throughout the national territory.”[xliii] The group had demanded that the Congolese government admit “state failure” in the eastern DRC before any restoration of state authority in August.[xliv]

The third pillar revolves around security, which includes several long-contentious issues surrounding disarmament and reintegration of rebel forces. The parties agreed to the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) of local armed groups and establishment of  “transitional security arrangements” in impacted areas.[xlv] The arrangement—likely a joint security force—would have a mandate for five months with the possibility of extension as progress occurs with the return of state authority pillar.[xlvi] The agreement says that the two sides will negotiate the “composition, command, and mandate” of the security force in future talks.[xlvii] The two sides agreed not to “harbor or support any armed group” and to negotiate how to deal with “foreign armed groups,” presumably referring to the FDLR.[xlviii] The agreement also stipulates the selective reintegration of M23 combatants into the Congolese army.[xlix]

M23 has shown no willingness to disarm. CTP reported previously that M23 claimed to have added nearly 17,000 new fighters to its ranks since mid-September, some through forcible conscription.[l] The group has continued its “voluntary” recruitment campaign, adding at least hundreds and possibly thousands of more recruits since then.[li] M23 has at least doubled its fighting force since early 2025 and may have quadrupled its number of active troops per the group’s claims. The group has tried to balance the need to police urban areas with conventional military operations and devoted resources to train thousands of police officers and secure urban areas to allow its regular forces to focus on the frontlines.

Figure 3. Rwandan-Backed Rebellion Force Deployments in the Eastern DRC

Note: Estimate for M23 in 2025 is based on UN reporting and the group’s recent claims.

Source: Yale Ford; UN; Gérard Prunier.

Negotiating the composition, implementation, and mandate of a joint force could take months. The two sides had rejected an earlier Qatari-led draft proposing that a multilateral mechanism committee would oversee the establishment and operationalization of a joint security force that would operate as the only authorized force in the Kivus under the purview of the Congolese Ministry of Interior.[lii] The draft agreement proposed that M23 would comprise up to half of the force, with the other half recruiting from the Congolese National Police (PNC) and local civilians but not the FARDC.[liii] The interim force had a renewable mandate of five years, and its members would then be integrated into the FARDC or the PNC at the end of its mandate.[liv] M23 has shown no indication that it would cede operational authority to pro-Congolese government forces, whom it is actively fighting on multiple frontlines, however.

Both sides remain incompatibly opposed on who and how to integrate armed forces. The integration of armed groups into government military networks has been a repeated effort since the Sun City agreements in 2002. The Congolese government has said that it would selectively integrate some M23 combatants but not senior commanders. The Congolese parliament is considering a bill that outright bans the integration of ex-rebels into various pillars of state’s security apparatus, however.[lv] One of M23’s original demands was amnesty and reintegration, but the group shifted its rhetoric in 2025 and now says that it will seek to integrate the FARDC and “not the other way around” under any peace deal.[lvi]

Close ties between the FARDC and the FDLR as a “foreign armed group” will likely be an additional source of tension in this pillar. The DRC has long relied on the FDLR as an anti-Rwandan government and anti-M23 proxy force. Senior FARDC officers have colluded with the FDLR by warning FDLR fighters of future attacks in anti-FDLR operations —most notably in late 2024, when the FARDC North Kivu military governor leaked operational plans to the FDLR, which allow the group’s high command to evade death or capture.[lvii] The July UN report said the FARDC restored relations with the FDLR after brief anti-FDLR operations in late 2024, transferred more money and weapons to the FDLR, and has continued to rely on the FDLR “systematically” to fight M23 in 2025.[lviii]

The fourth pillar aims to address decades-long issues of identity, citizenship, and the return of IDPs and refugees and will likely be complicated by M23’s ongoing efforts to reshape local demographics. The framework calls on the two sides to address the issue of “national identity” to facilitate the return of IDPs and refugees in pillar discussions.[lix] The Congolese government committed to protect IDPs and refugees from “persecution, hate speech, denationalization, forced exile, etc.”[lx] The two sides committed to facilitate the return of refugees to their region of country of origin, in line with a UN-backed agreement between the DRC and Rwanda that has facilitated the return of close to 1,000 refugees to Rwanda via M23-controlled territory since August.[lxi]

Ethnic strife has been an unfortunate feature of armed conflict in the eastern DRC for decades. The Congolese state has played a role in fomenting ethnic strife, dating to the 1980s when former Congolese dictator Mobutu Sese Seko issued a citizenship law that essentially denied nationality from Kinyarwanda-speaking communities. Congolese Tutsis have periodically faced expulsion campaigns, land confiscations, and targeted hate speech and killings in the eastern DRC. The Banyamulenge, Tutsis who live in the high plateaus of South Kivu, have also been vilified. The Rwandan army sparked the Congo Wars in the late 1990s when it invaded the eastern DRC and has since justified its intervention on the basis of protecting these communities. Some experts on the Great Lakes region believe that Rwanda’s meddling in the eastern DRC has exacerbated discrimination against ethnic Tutsis, however—not mitigated it.

M23 has tried to reshape local demographics on its own in 2025. M23 dismantled refugee and IDP camps and forced at least 700,000 people to disperse when it captured Goma in late January.[lxii] Almost two million IDPs have returned to their places of origin since January.[lxiii] The group has repatriated thousands of Rwandan refugees, reportedly mainly from majority-Hutu areas in North Kivu, to Rwanda since May.[lxiv] Some of the transfers were done under UN oversight, but the UN told Human Rights Watch in June that the screening was “done under pressure”—presumably from M23 or Rwanda—and that the refugees had no other choice.[lxv] M23 has called the refugees “Rwandan subjects” and dependents of extremist Hutu militants and destroyed Congolese identity documents of some of these refugees in mid-May.[lxvi]

M23 and Rwanda have helped resettle Tutsis into M23-controlled areas. The UN reported that M23 and Rwanda repatriated Congolese Tutsi families from Rwanda to M23-controlled Congolese territory, including many areas that M23’s and Rwanda’s repatriation efforts of Rwandan refugees had vacated.[lxvii] The DRC government accused M23 and Rwanda on several occasions in 2025 of resettling “Rwandan families” in the eastern DRC as part of deliberate plan to reshape local demographics.[lxviii] Many IDPs who dispersed from refugee camps near Goma returned to their places of origin to find their land occupied by M23 or other families.[lxix] The July UN report said that M23 systematically “destroyed archives in order to erase institutional memory and evidence of land tenure” as the group continued to facilitate the return of refugees from Rwanda.[lxx]

M23 has sought to establish control over the land economy through land management and urban planning edicts. The group seized and redistributed public and private property in 2025 and has initiated construction on plots of land that were subject to land conflict disputes before M23 gained control in certain areas.[lxxi] The M23-appointed North Kivu governor said in early August that the group plans to subdivide Goma into four communes.[lxxii] The M23-appointed South Kivu governor began issuing land management laws throughout South Kivu in late July.[lxxiii] M23 formally established an arbitration center that will deal in part with land-related conflicts in early November.[lxxiv]

The fifth pillar is improving the economy and social services, but the DRC’s continued refusal to reopen banking in M23-controlled territory is a major initial roadblock. The framework says that the Congolese government will take “all necessary measures” to restore basic public services.[lxxv] The two sides also committed to implement a “recovery program” in areas such as infrastructure and health with support of the international community.[lxxvi] A previous Qatari-proposed draft agreement had called for a national “economic recovery plan” to be implemented in 2026.[lxxvii] Tshisekedi announced a $5 billion commitment under his own emergency aid program to reconstruct the Kivus in late October but has provided no further details.[lxxviii] CTP reported in early September that M23 has provided public services and allocated capital and manpower to revitalize infrastructure.[lxxix]

M23 has tried to establish a parallel financial system but faced major challenges in implementing its broader economic agenda. The group has taken steps to set up alternative banking and payment systems, raise funds through an extensive tax regime, and regulate and encourage regional economic activity.[lxxx] The Central Bank of Congo severed all ties with local banks and microfinance institutions in M23-controlled areas in early 2025, which has severely disrupted economic activity. The local and regional economy in M23-controlled areas has marginally improved since March, but liquidity challenges are still an issue. M23 has opted for temporary measures to stem the economic crisis and manage public scrutiny, such as price controls and lowering or annulling some taxes.[lxxxi]

Reopening banks in M23-controlled territory would be major concession for the Congolese government and risks strengthening M23. M23 has been unable to overcome its economic obstacles, largely due to its status as an armed rebellion and internationally sanctioned nonstate entity.[lxxxii]  Banking branches must receive recognition from the regulatory authorities of a recognized government and international banking institutions to operate. Congolese banks must hold a certain amount of reserves, whether in Congolese francs, which the Central Bank regulates and controls, or in US dollars, to underwrite their operations. Outside financial institutions and private businesses, some of whom declared force majeure in early 2025, remain unlikely to assume the risk of steep penalties for doing business with—and indirectly funding—M23 due to sanctions.[lxxxiii] Altering M23’s legal status to return service to banks and stimulate the economy would further legitimize and entrench the group and likely allow it to rake in more revenue from taxation and better finance military and administrative operations.

The final unresolved pillar is the establishment of a justice, truth, and reconciliation commission. The two sides agreed to establish an independent national commission for “promoting truth, reconciliation and accountability for crimes” and recommending reparations through a transitional justice process.[lxxxiv] The August draft agreement had similarly called for the establishment of a truth and reconciliation mechanism.[lxxxv]

Justice mechanisms in the DRC have long been dysfunctional. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which ran from 2003 to 2007 during the transitional phase after the Congo Wars, failed to achieve significant results due to multiple issues. A Congolese watchdog organization accused a national fund intended to compensate victims of Ugandan aggression in the DRC from the Congo Wars of embezzling over $100 million dollars between 2022 and 2024 in late September.[lxxxvi]

M23 has attempted to establish a parallel judicial system, which will likely further complicate joint justice commissions. M23 has been working to build a judicial system since late May when it created an arbitration court for local conflicts in Goma and Bukavu.[lxxxvii] The group took further steps and appointed a 25-member commission to oversee the establishment of “independent” civil and military courts and judicial institutions in M23-controlled areas in August.[lxxxviii] M23 announced the recruitment of more than 370 officials for its parallel system who will serve as magistrates and judges in M23-controlled courts in early November.[lxxxix] The Congolese government has denounced M23’s efforts to establish parallel courts and has said it will annul any judicial acts or decisions taken by M23 authorities.[xc] Tshisekedi officially annulled judicial acts undertaken by M23 in a series of presidential orders in early November.[xci]

Data Cutoff: November 20, 2025, at 10 a.m. ET

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