Author: Congo Times

A National Imperative in a Regional Context Malaria remains the first cause of outpatient consultation in many Central African states, yet Congo-Brazzaville has registered a gradual decline in incidence since 2015, a trend corroborated by the World Health Organization’s 2023 World Malaria Report. Sustaining that momentum has become a cornerstone of President Denis Sassou Nguesso’s social agenda, evidenced by the recent decision of the Council of Ministers to accelerate universal coverage with long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLINs). The department of Pool, bordering the capital and intersecting vital transport corridors, was selected as an early beneficiary of the 2023-2024 distribution because population…

A Cinematic Rendez-Vous with Geopolitical Overtones From 25 August to 8 September 2025, Brazzaville will convert its boulevards, screening rooms and riverfront esplanades into a laboratory of female creativity. The inaugural Mwassi Film d’Afrique Ô Féminin Festival—“mwassi” meaning woman in Lingala—arrives at a moment when African states increasingly employ cultural production as an extension of diplomacy. By foregrounding women’s voices, organisers intend not merely to enrich the continental film canon but also to underscore the Republic of Congo’s commitment to the normative agenda articulated in the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and the UNESCO 2005 Convention on Cultural Diversity. Government Backing…

Setting the Stage in Brazzaville In the cool auditorium of Brazzaville’s Palais des Congrès, Secretary-General Pierre Moussa officially opened the preparatory works for the Congolese Labour Party’s 6th Ordinary Congress. Observers from allied parties and the diplomatic corps took note, recognising the event as the first public waypoint on the road to the 2026 presidential race. National media outlets, including Les Dépêches de Brazzaville and Télé Congo, highlighted the symbolic weight of the date—7 August, the eve of the country’s Independence Day—as an intentional reminder of the party’s historic role in state-building (Les Dépêches de Brazzaville, 8 Aug 2023). The…

A Stage Set for Contemporary Sports Diplomacy When Paris Saint-Germain and Tottenham Hotspur take the field at the Stadio Friuli, officials in Brussels, London and Paris will watch almost as attentively as the travelling supporters. The UEFA Super Cup has evolved into more than a ceremonial curtain-raiser; it is now a concise demonstration of European soft power, branding reach and regulatory acumen. UEFA’s own economic report shows that last season’s continental finals drew cumulative global audiences exceeding 250 million, a figure that ministries of foreign affairs increasingly view as a reservoir of influence (UEFA Annual Report 2023). While France deploys…

A Strategic Pivot in Congolese Social Policy When the Congolese authorities and the World Food Programme (WFP) confirmed, on 6 August in Brazzaville, the transition from the “Semences d’avenir” pilot to a full-fledged National School Feeding Programme, the announcement resonated far beyond the walls of the ministry building. It signalled a calibrated policy shift in which nutrition, education and agricultural self-reliance converge with foreign-policy considerations. In the words of WFP representative Gon Meyers, the agreement covering an initial twenty-five schools is “the first institutional bridge toward a universal scheme rooted in local value chains” (WFP, 6 August 2025). For a…

Diplomatic Marathon Behind Matoko’s Bid When Prime Minister Anatole Collinet Makosso walked into the presidential palace this week, his portfolio was less a binder than a travelogue. In less than two months, he and a compact ministerial cohort have logged thousands of miles, moving from Lomé to Lisbon, from Brasília to Bangkok, to present what Makosso calls “a Congolese offer of service to multilateralism.” The audience with President Denis Sassou Nguesso was therefore both ritual and report: a measured debrief on how Congo-Brazzaville is translating loyalty to UNESCO into votes for Firmin Édouard Matoko, a veteran of the Paris-based agency…

Aligning with the Republic’s digital transformation roadmap The Ministry of Posts, Telecommunications and the Digital Economy lists cash-light transactions among the pillars of Congo Digital 2025, the national strategy endorsed by President Denis Sassou Nguesso. LEO’s architecture, hosted in a regional cloud certified by the Banque des États de l’Afrique centrale, dovetails with that policy by lowering the entry threshold for first-time users of electronic banking. According to BCEAC data, only 24 percent of adult Congolese held a bank account in 2022, yet mobile phone penetration exceeded 96 percent. The gap represents both a challenge and an opportunity: bringing digitally…

A Continental Showcase with Geopolitical Overtones When the Confederation of African Football assigned the eighth African Nations Championship to a transnational trio—Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania—it quietly acknowledged East Africa’s rising appetite for continental leadership. For Brazzaville, whose football diplomacy has been largely conducted through the more glamorous senior Africa Cup of Nations, CHAN 2025 offers a lower-risk yet symbolically potent arena. The tournament is restricted to domestically based players, allowing governments to project the health of their domestic leagues as a proxy for wider institutional stability (CAF communiqué, 2024). President Denis Sassou Nguesso’s administration has long framed sport as a…

An Unexpected Comeback on Brussels Stage When Ley de Mamad’u stepped onto a modest Belgian stage in April 2025 to preview “Taxi-moto”, few anticipated the ripple that a three-minute rumba track could send through Congo-Brazzaville’s sizeable diaspora community. Better known at home as “Sugar Daddy” for his velvety baritone, the artist had receded from the spotlight since his 2020 ballad “La Paix” became an unofficial soundtrack to post-election reconciliation rallies. His current re-emergence, strategically unveiled in Europe before reaching the Congolese airwaves, reflects an increasingly common pattern among Central African musicians who test new material on the diaspora circuit, then…

Rumour Ecology in Brazzaville Public Sphere In the crowded cafés of Poto-Poto and across the airwaves of community radios, whispers about the 2026 presidential race circulate with the urgency of the rainy-season River Congo. Seasoned observers note that every electoral cycle rekindles this informal marketplace of tales, yet the present moment feels unusually volatile. Digital penetration has leapt from 9 percent of households in 2016 to more than 35 percent in 2023, according to the International Telecommunication Union, altering the velocity and reach of political gossip (ITU 2023). The Congolese state is hardly unfamiliar with this phenomenon. In 2002 and…