Author: Congo Times

Continental Momentum behind Congo’s Nominee When the UNESCO Executive Board closed the window for submissions on 15 March 2025, only three names lay on the table. One belonged to Edouard Firmin Matoko, a seasoned Congolese technocrat whose career inside the Paris-based organisation spans more than two decades. By 14 May, President Denis Sassou Nguesso had elevated Matoko to the rank of itinerant ambassador, signalling that the contest would be met with the full weight of Brazzaville’s foreign-policy apparatus. For the Congolese leadership, the October 2025 vote is not merely institutional housekeeping; it is a symbolic battlefield on which Africa’s voice…

Regional monetary pulse reaches a decade high The Communauté économique et monétaire de l’Afrique centrale closed 2024 with a fiduciary circulation of 5 363.3 billion CFA francs, a level unseen since the 2014 oil-price shock. According to the Banque des États de l’Afrique centrale’s annual compendium, this translates into roughly 9.6 billion United States dollars, marking a year-on-year expansion of 13.03 percent (BEAC Annual Report 2024). The International Monetary Fund’s October 2024 Regional Economic Outlook corroborates the upswing, noting that post-pandemic retail activity, higher hydrocarbon receipts and the gradual normalisation of cross-border trade have jointly lifted cash demand across the…

Civil Society as a Vector of Preventive Health in Congo In the early light of 26 July, more than fifty members of the Lheyet-Gaboka Association for Development (ALGD) converged on the Republic Roundabout in Brazzaville to inaugurate what their president, Axel Ariel Dinghat Mouenokanga, framed as ‘a mobile seminar on longevity’. Far from a mere stroll, the march responded to World Health Organization findings that physical inactivity remains a leading risk factor for non-communicable diseases (WHO 2022). By convening citizens across professional, age and gender lines, the association transformed a routine fitness activity into a demonstration of civil-society commitment to…

A Confluence of Sport and Statecraft When the first balls struck the freshly resurfaced courts of the Brazzaville Tennis Pole on 28 July, the event transcended mere athletic competition. The ITF World Tennis Tour M25 Open—staged in two consecutive legs until 10 August—embodies a calibrated exercise in nation branding. With eighty-five athletes representing twenty-two countries across four continents, the Republic of Congo is deploying tennis as a subtle extension of diplomacy, echoing trends observed in Doha, Kigali and Abu Dhabi (International Tennis Federation, 2024). Infrastructure as a Statement of Intent The venue, adjacent to the storied Alphonse-Massamba-Débat Stadium, was overhauled…

Brazzaville Celebrates a Mind-Sport Laureate Few audiences in the cabinet room of the Primature are as unabashedly jubilant as the one that welcomed Briny Oscar Matouridi on 26 July in Brazzaville. Flanked by Prime Minister Anatole Collinet Makosso and Youth and Sports Minister Hugues Ngouelondélé, the 17-year-old returned from the 53rd Francophone World Scrabble Championships in Trois-Rivières, Canada, carrying five medals—two of them gold—earned against competitors ranging from rising talents to veteran grand masters (Fédération Internationale de Scrabble Francophone communique, 25 July 2023). From Classroom Desks to Quebec Podiums Matouridi’s ascent is emblematic of a generation shaped as much by…

Brazzaville Amphitheatre Sets the Stage A warm July current floated across the Congo River as the Jean-Baptiste Tati-Loutard amphitheatre filled with academics, ministers and foreign envoys. Under the patronage of Professor Delphine Edith Emmanuel Adouki, Minister of Higher Education, the Société congolaise de psychologie opened its maiden congress, an event expressly dedicated to the late Dr. André Bouya, the country’s first psychology PhD holder. The symbolism was unmistakable: national memory intertwined with an earnest search for evidence-based responses to contemporary challenges. Bouya’s Legacy and National Academic Identity Dr. Bouya’s intellectual journey mirrors Congo-Brazzaville’s broader aspiration to craft indigenous social sciences…

A Fragile Delta Confronts an Age-Old Pathogen When health agents stationed along the braided channels of the Congo River began reporting clusters of acute watery diarrhoea in early July, memories of previous regional epidemics resurfaced instantly. Within days, the national laboratory confirmed Vibrio cholerae O1, serotype Ogawa, in two of three specimens collected on Mbamou Island, a densely populated riparian district that sits administratively within Brazzaville yet remains physically separated by water from the capital’s main banks. The Ministry of Health and Population, led by Dr Jean-Rosaire Ibara, accordingly declared an epidemic on 26 July, in line with International Health…

Early Thunder of Support in Talangaï The esplanade of Talangaï’s city hall, normally a quiet administrative enclave, reverberated last week with chants favouring a renewed mandate for President Denis Sassou Nguesso. The Association for the Development of the Liboka Axis (ADAL) gathered representatives from more than sixty villages to request, in unambiguous terms, that the head of state file his candidacy for the March 2026 election. Its chairman, engineer-turned-political-organiser Maixent Raoul Ominga, coupled the appeal with a symbolic public fund-raising drive that reportedly collected several million CFA francs in a matter of hours (Agence Congolaise d’Information). A Crescendo of Civic…

Geostrategic Location at Africa’s Equator To the seasoned diplomat, the Republic of the Congo offers a textbook reminder that geography still conditions power. Straddling the Equator, the country’s borders touch Gabon, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Angolan enclave of Cabinda, creating a geopolitical junction that is arguably disproportionate to its population of just over five million (UN DESA 2022). Brazzaville sits directly opposite Kinshasa, rendering the Congo River simultaneously a barrier and a potential economic umbilical cord between two capitals separated by barely a kilometre of water. Thanks to this singular position,…

Equatorial Crossroads and Rainforest Shield Perched astride the Equator, the Republic of the Congo occupies a geographic hinge between the Gulf of Guinea and the heart of the Congo Basin. Over two-thirds of national territory remains cloaked in primary forest, granting the country one of the planet’s most significant carbon sinks, a status acknowledged by recent United Nations Environment Programme briefings (UNEP 2023). Far from being a passive backdrop, this emerald shield offers Brazzaville diplomatic currency in global climate negotiations, allowing it to champion conservation while safeguarding sovereign developmental prerogatives. From Coastal Plain to Central Plateaus: A Mosaic of Terrains…