Author: Congo Times

Brazzaville prepares a showroom for Congolese timber art Each August, the banks of the Congo River swell with equatorial humidity and diplomatic expectations alike. From 11 to 25 August, the fourth Salon des métiers du bois—popularly abbreviated Sameb—will convert Brazzaville’s exhibition grounds into a living gallery of Congolese woodcraft. By placing the slogan “Bois et artisanat : de la forêt à la maison, consommons congolais” at the centre of its branding, organisers appeal to a double ambition: revitalising an artisanal tradition and inserting it more firmly in national consumption patterns. Minister of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises and Handicrafts Jacqueline Lydia…

A Trophy that Signals Strategic Alignment When Africa Global Logistics (AGL) unveiled its annual CSR 2025 trophy in Paris earlier this year, the accolade travelled swiftly to Pointe-Noire. The Congolese subsidiary emerged first among more than sixty francophone and anglophone entities assessed by the group’s Quality, Health, Safety and Environment division. In the words of AGL’s global QHSE & CSR director Olivier Restoueix, the award reflects “an identity anchored in responsible enterprise”. His statement is more than corporate rhetoric: it mirrors the Congolese authorities’ pledge, reiterated in the National Development Plan 2022-2026, to harness private-sector capital for sustainable transformation. By…

Soft Ballads amid the “Ivorian Miracle” When broadcasters in Abidjan first placed the microphone in front of Daouda Koné in 1976, Ivory Coast was riding the crest of an economic boom often labelled the “Ivorian Miracle” by the World Bank. President Félix Houphouët-Boigny’s developmental formula of agricultural exports, franc-zone stability and political consensus had turned the country into a rare African showcase of modern highways and neon-lit nightlife (World Bank, 1984). Against a continental backdrop where Fela Kuti condemned military juntas in Nigeria and Thomas Mapfumo harangued Rhodesian rule from Zimbabwe, Daouda offered a discreetly different register: soft-spoken ballads in…

Setting the stage at Marien-Ngouabi University On 30 July the conference hall of Marien-Ngouabi University’s rectorate filled with a quiet, studious tension. Twenty young women—from final-year pupils to civil servants—took their seats for the written segment of the second Miss Mayele contest, an initiative crafted by Congolese scholar Sylvia Djouob, now a professor of French literature in Paris. The one-hour examination, composed entirely of multiple-choice grammar questions, had a remit far broader than syntactic precision: it sought to anchor intellectual self-confidence in a society where, historically, public space has leaned masculine. Miss Mayele emerged in 2022 as a cultural response…

Congo Handball Federation election timeline: context and stakes After months of anticipatory silence, the Independent Electoral Commission of the Congolese Handball Federation released a detailed calendar that points to 16 August as the date for an elective congress. The announcement has revived a sense of urgency among clubs, regional leagues and corporate sponsors who see the vote as a prerequisite for the re-launch of national championships halted since 2022. In Brazzaville’s sports circles, the calendar is considered a milestone that could nurture renewed confidence in the federation’s governance, a goal explicitly supported by the Ministry of Youth and Sports, which…

Rapid Response Medicine in the Cuvette Heartland At dawn on 23 July the central courtyard of the 31 July 1968 General Hospital in Owando filled with families from the Cuvette department and beyond, each carrying the hope that a long-delayed consultation might finally be within reach. Branded “Operation Health Punch”, the ten-day campaign was conceived by the parliamentary platform Dynamique Owando Pluriel and executed in concert with the Ministry of Health and Population. By day’s end cardiologists, nephrologists and surgeons had screened more than three hundred patients for conditions ranging from under-treated malaria to complicated hernias, all at no cost…

Smolny’s Symbolic Berth in Central Africa Shortly after sunrise on 28 July, the white-hulled training ship Smolny, attached to Russia’s Baltic Fleet, slid alongside the main quay of Pointe-Noire amid a flourish of brass instruments and ceremonial salutes. The Congolese prefectoral authorities, flanked by senior officers of the First Military Region, greeted Captain Igor Markov and his contingent of nearly four hundred sailors and cadets with honours that echoed beyond protocol. Both sides framed the port call as the tangible expression of a security dialogue that has quietly intensified since Brazzaville and Moscow signed a bilateral defence agreement in 2019…

Equatorial Hub Between Forest and Ocean Few African states condense as much strategic diversity into a single map as the Republic of the Congo. Straddling the Equator and sitting astride both hemispheres, the country links five neighbours and the Atlantic Ocean in a geopolitical knot that has long commanded diplomatic attention. Cameroon and the Central African Republic open a northern corridor to the Sahel; Gabon buttresses the west; the Democratic Republic of the Congo embraces the south and east; while the sliver of Angola’s Cabinda province interrupts the coastline to the southwest. This spatial configuration has fostered a tradition of…

A strategic geography at Africa’s equatorial hinge Few African states combine coastal access, fluvial depth and equatorial biodiversity as seamlessly as the Republic of the Congo. Straddling the Equator between 4° and 5° latitude south, the country occupies a pivotal corridor connecting the Gulf of Guinea to the continental interior. Diplomats frequently note that Brazzaville’s ability to address landlocked neighbours such as the Central African Republic while maintaining an Atlantic shoreline grants the Congolese state a dual maritime–continental outlook, a “Janus geography” as phrased by a senior official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2023 interview). The coastal corridor and…

Geographic Keystone of Central Africa Stretched across the Equator, the Republic of the Congo offers a striking juxtaposition of coastal plains, dense rain forest and interior plateaus. From the Mayombé Massif’s rugged relief to the swampy reaches of the western Congo basin, the country forms a natural bridge between the Gulf of Guinea and the heart of the continent. This varied topography explains why Brazzaville, the capital perched on the right bank of the great river, emerged early as a logistical hinge for trade moving north–south and river traffic flowing east–west. Congo’s 160-kilometre Atlantic frontage may appear modest, yet its…