Author: Congo Times

South-South Momentum Gains Pace From Jakarta to Johannesburg, the vocabulary of development is being rewritten by the actors of the Global South. Nowhere is this linguistic and economic shift clearer than in the intertwined trajectories of the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of Congo. Both countries, signatories to the 2021–2023 Action Plan of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), have declared the present decade one of “shared modernisation” (FOCAC Action Plan 2021). Congolese negotiators emphasise that the notion transcends the trope of raw-material dependency, insisting on a diversified industrial base capable of employing a rapidly growing youth cohort.…

Presidential Dialogue Signals Fresh Momentum The red-carpet welcome reserved for President Umaro Sissoco Embaló on 15 October in Brazzaville set a cordial tone for the second face-to-face meeting between the Bissau-Guinean leader and his Congolese counterpart in less than two years. According to the communiqué issued by the office of President Denis Sassou Nguesso the two leaders met for nearly three hours, alternating a restricted tête-à-tête with an extended session that gathered key ministers and senior diplomats (Congolese Presidency, 15 Oct. 2023). Officials on both sides underline that the objective was not to draft a grandiose new treaty overnight but…

Daily life under an intermittent grid With dusk barely settled, whole districts of Brazzaville are sporadically plunged into silence, the luminous skyline replaced by a patchwork of candlelight and the distant hum of diesel generators. Residents recount evenings when refrigerators thaw, fans fall silent and children lean over kerosene lamps to finish their homework. The Congo Electricity Corporation (E²C) has acknowledged aged equipment and overloaded feeders, yet the absence of a detailed timetable for localised repairs has fuelled a perception of randomness. Citizens describe the uncertainty as more unsettling than the darkness itself, fearing crime spikes each time the streetlights…

Strategic Mobilisation of Urban Capital The Republic of Congo is preparing to translate policy pledges into asphalt and cobblestones. Announcing the measure on 14 October in Brazzaville, Minister of Urban Sanitation, Local Development and Road Maintenance, Juste Désiré Mondélé, confirmed that the first phase of a nationwide street-paving operation will commence during the opening fortnight of November. Originating from recommendations adopted at the inaugural Urban Sanitation Conference held last February, the scheme is embedded in the freshly validated National Sanitation Policy and signals the government’s intent to upgrade urban infrastructure while pursuing inclusive growth. Brazzaville has been selected as the…

A Regional Laboratory for Community Forestry The cool morning of 14 October found thirty specialists from Congo-Brazzaville and Cameroon gathered in a discreet conference hall overlooking the Djoué River. Under the flag of the Project for Strengthening and Innovation in Participatory Forestry for the Benefit of Local Communities on the Edge of Protected Areas of the Congo Basin (RiFoP), they were tasked with assessing a concept that is raising expectations as much as questions: the “household agroforest”. Developed as a sub-component of RiFoP, the approach assigns clearly delimited forest plots to individual families or clusters of related households, who are…

A decisive stride in Congo’s digital odyssey A discreet yet significant milestone was reached this week in Brazzaville. Emerging from a mid-term review with a World Bank delegation led by Heri Andrianasy, the Minister of Posts, Telecommunications and the Digital Economy, Léon Juste Ibombo, confirmed that twenty high-speed internet access points are operational across the country’s interior. The installations form the vanguard of the Project for the Acceleration of the Digital Transformation, PATN, co-financed by the World Bank and the European Union to the tune of 100 million US dollars. Their activation translates an abstract policy into a tangible service…

A strategic gathering in Brazzaville From 14 to 15 October, the ninth Board of Directors of the Central African Aviation Safety Oversight Agency, ASSA-AC, is convening in Brazzaville under the chairmanship of Serge Florent Dzota, Director-General of Congo’s National Civil Aviation Agency. The meeting is expected to endorse volumes I and II of the Community Training Manual together with a triannual training plan for technical personnel drawn from the six member states of the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa, CEMAC. Opening the session, ASSA-AC Director-General Eugène Apombi recalled that the community had, since 16 August, equipped itself with…

Courtrooms Poised for High-Profile Wildlife Hearings On 15 and 16 October the calm corridors of the Owando and Impfondo courts will turn into focal points for Central African conservation. Two defendants, arrested in separate operations conducted by the National Gendarmerie and the Forestry and Water services with technical backing from the Wildlife Law Enforcement Support Project, stand accused of attempting to commercialise trophies from fully protected species. The dual schedule, unusual for offences of this nature, concentrates national attention on the judiciary’s role in dismantling illicit fauna supply chains. Owando: The Ivory File The first dossier, to be examined on…

A solemn farewell in Brazzaville Silence settled over the vast nave of the Palais des Congrès as the national anthem faded and the tricolour flag draped the oak coffin of André Georges Mouyabi. At exactly ten o’clock, President Denis Sassou Nguesso entered, accompanied by the presidents of the two chambers of Parliament, senior judges and foreign diplomats. In a gesture laden with republican symbolism, the Head of State laid a wreath of roses before bowing, hands crossed, in front of the catafalque (Agence Congolaise d’Information). The ceremony marked the Republic’s highest level of recognition for a personality who, although habitually…

Strategic Significance of the Kouilou Campaign The recent announcement of a free distribution of long-lasting insecticide-treated mosquito nets in the coastal department of Kouilou offers more than a fleeting headline. It encapsulates an unspoken consensus among Congolese public-health planners: vector control remains the strongest bulwark against mosquito-borne diseases in regions where climatic conditions favour perennial transmission. By targeting Kouilou, whose mangrove estuaries and humid savannahs create a vibrant breeding ground for Anopheles mosquitoes, the authorities elect to intervene where the epidemiological return on investment is demonstrably high. Officials describe the campaign as a calibrated continuation of national policies that have…