Author: Congo Times

Brazzaville’s Evolving Social Protection Landscape When the Republic of Congo introduced its Single Social Registry in 2019, the initiative was framed as the technocratic backbone of the National Development Plan, a database able to match scarce public transfers with households in greatest need. Supported by concessional financing from the World Bank and technical input from the African Development Bank, the registry today contains more than 450 000 households, according to the Ministry of Social Affairs. Until recently, however, its very design mirrored a traditional notion of citizenship that excluded some 61 000 refugees and asylum-seekers residing mainly in the departments…

Football fields as civic classrooms There are evenings in Brazzaville when the equatorial dusk settles over the Ornano military stadium and floodlights reveal more than just budding strikers. Throughout the first week of August, the ground became an open-air classroom where notions of discipline, fair play and collective responsibility were rehearsed alongside tactical drills. Endorsed by the Commandement des Forces de Police and inaugurated by the Minister of Technical and Vocational Education, Ghislain Thierry Maguessa Ebomé, the U13 and U20 tournament explicitly carries the slogan “Combating Juvenile Delinquency”. The wording is not ornamental. In a city where two-thirds of residents…

A Capital on the Move: Symbolism of the 28 September Walk When Brazzaville’s riverfront awakes to the measured rhythm of hundreds of participants pacing from the Plateau des 15 Ans to Square de Gaulle, the choreography will be anything but spontaneous. Wild Safari Tours and the state-run Office for the Promotion of the Tourism Industry have chosen 28 September, the first morning after World Tourism Day, to stage a five-kilometre promenade celebrating the capital’s architectural, historical and cultural patrimony. The timing is redolent of the United Nations World Tourism Organization’s annual plea for “tourism for inclusive growth” (UNWTO, 2023) and…

Demographic Dividend Meets Public Health Imperative When the Ministry of Health gathered partners in Brazzaville in early August, the official agenda spoke soberly of “harmonising essential services.” Yet behind the technocratic phrasing lay a strategic calculus: nearly 62 % of the Congolese population is under 25, and transforming that youthful surge into a demographic dividend depends on safeguarding adolescent health. International indicators draw an unvarnished picture. The adolescent fertility rate, though declining, remains above the sub-Saharan average, and unmet need for contraception hovers near 22 % according to the latest Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (UNICEF 2022). Confronted with these figures,…

A Landmark 20th Edition and Its Diplomatic Echoes When seventy-five amateur and professional athletes answer the starter’s pistol on 14 August, the Brazzaville Semi-Marathon International will cross an important threshold. Two decades of uninterrupted organisation have turned what began as a local celebration into a modest, yet influential, node of Central African sports diplomacy. Embassies accredited to the Republic of Congo have quietly expanded their guest lists for the customary finish-line reception, aware that a well-timed handshake in running gear can resonate more warmly than a formal démarche. Organised by the multi-sports association Lion d’Or under the stewardship of businessman…

Epidemiological Snapshot of an Ancient Foe The World Health Organization’s Situation Report N°6, released on 7 August 2025, records 1 842 cumulative suspected cholera cases and 56 fatalities since the first alerts in mid-May. Over three-quarters of notifications emanate from riverine districts stretching from the Pool downstream to the Plateaux, reaffirming the historical correlation between Vibrio cholerae transmission and seasonal fluctuations of the Congo River. Although the case-fatality ratio stands at a controlled three percent, epidemiologists warn that any disruption in rehydration protocols could tip the balance. UNICEF field officers attribute the recent spike to a fortnight of unseasonal torrents…

Epidemiological Snapshot of August 2025 The seventh situation report issued on 9 August 2025 records 1 128 suspected cholera cases and 32 fatalities since the index alert in Makoua six weeks earlier. While the absolute figures remain below the peaks of the 2009 and 2017 outbreaks, the geographic diffusion—stretching from the Ogooué basin to peri-urban Brazzaville—places new pressure on the surveillance grid maintained by the Ministry of Health and Population. Field laboratories in Owando and Pointe-Noire confirm that the current strain belongs to the El Tor lineage, serotype Inaba, mirroring profiles circulating simultaneously in western Democratic Republic of Congo. According…

Calendar Anchored in Legal Certainty Brazzaville’s Official Gazette on 7 August carried the Interior Ministry’s decree that synchronises two critical moments in the electoral cycle: the nationwide revision of voter lists from 1 September to 30 October 2025 and the presidential poll on 22 March 2026, with armed-forces personnel casting their votes five days earlier. The timeline is consistent with the constitutional requirement that the Head of State be elected at least forty-five days before the end of the incumbent’s mandate, a provision embedded after the 2015 referendum. National authorities stress that the ten-week window for enrolment will allow the…

Lower-League Pitches, Higher-Level Stakes Much of the Republic of Congo’s international visibility is still channelled through the flair of its footballers, a reality President Denis Sassou Nguesso has repeatedly framed as a vector of soft power during meetings with the sports ministry. The weekend just elapsed offered a timely reminder. While media lenses naturally gravitated toward headline fixtures in Europe’s elite competitions, a quieter form of diplomacy unfolded on provincial grounds in England, Austria and Belgium, where members of the Diables Rouges and their dual-national compatriots accrued points, minutes and an intangible yet potent reservoir of national prestige. At Peterborough,…

Independence Festivities as a Catalyst for Public Health Each August, Congo-Brazzaville’s Independence commemorations provide a moment of collective reflection on nation-building. This year, the festivities acquired a distinctly public-health dimension with the launch of Lipanda ya Mboka—literally “Freedom of the Nation”—a promotional eye-care campaign initiated by the non-governmental organisation Œil Droit, Œil Gauche (ODG). The programme, which runs from 6 to 31 August in Brazzaville, offers ophthalmic consultations and prescription spectacles at markedly reduced prices, aligning patriotic celebration with the pragmatic objective of expanding access to essential health services. A Silent Epidemic of Preventable Visual Impairment The campaign arrives against…