Author: Congo Times

Strategic Convergence Between Brazzaville and Tokyo The five-day mission led by Minister of Urban Sanitation, Local Development and Road Maintenance Juste-Désiré Mondélé has quietly repositioned Congo-Brazzaville within Japan’s concentric circles of development diplomacy. By meeting State Minister for the Environment Hiroshi Nakada and the leadership of the Japan International Cooperation Agency, the delegation succeeded in translating a decade of cordial ties into operational agreements designed to address Congo’s most pressing infrastructural and ecological needs. Far from a ceremonial exercise, the visit aligned with President Denis Sassou Nguesso’s instruction to seek pragmatic partnerships that accelerate national implementation of the 2030 Sustainable…

Celebrating MSME Day in Brazzaville While the United Nations annually earmarks 27 June as Micro, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises Day, Brazzaville chose 28 June 2025 to translate the commemoration into concrete pedagogy. In the chandelier-lit halls of the Grand Lancaster Hotel, more than three hundred participants—from parliamentarians to hip-hop artists—converged for a master class titled “How to Create, Manage, Finance and Grow Your Enterprise.” The symbolism was hardly lost on observers: by coupling an international calendar event with a domestic capacity-building exercise, the Republic of the Congo signalled that the private sector is no longer a rhetorical afterthought but a…

From presidential intent to administrative reality The Republic of Congo has long proclaimed that decentralisation is a pillar of national cohesion, yet translating that ambition into credible municipal budgets has proved elusive. President Denis Sassou Nguesso’s administration, mindful of both popular expectations and regional integration benchmarks, has gradually edged away from a strictly centralised fiscal model toward a calibrated transfer system. The most recent step in this trajectory unfolded on 26 June 2025, when the Ministry of the Interior and Decentralisation convened a capacity-building workshop in Brazzaville under the patronage of Chief of Staff Séraphin Ondélé. The gathering epitomised a…

Strategic Context of Health Governance in Congo-Brazzaville Seven years after the national health sector review of 2018 highlighted the limited participation of communities in clinic management, Brazzaville is witnessing a calculated shift toward inclusive governance. The Ministry of Health’s 2022–2026 strategic plan identifies citizen engagement as a cornerstone of resilient service delivery, echoing World Health Organization recommendations on social accountability. Within this framework, Community Health Committees, connus localement sous le sigle Cosa, have become pivotal interlocutors between medical staff and users. The June 2025 Capacity-Building Workshop and Its Stakeholders Against this policy backdrop, the Observatoire congolais des droits des consommateurs…

Participatory Governance Gains Traction in Basic Education By convening more than one hundred officials and practitioners in Kintélé, the Ministry of Pre-School, Primary, Secondary Education and Literacy signalled that community-anchored governance has moved from aspiration to formal policy. The three-day workshop, presided over by Minister Jean-Luc Mouthou and facilitated by the World Bank-financed Accelerate Institutional Governance and Reform Programme, crystallised consensus around School Management Committees—known locally as Comités de gestion, or Coges—destined to become a cornerstone of public-school administration. Coges reflect a broader continental trend that UNESCO has repeatedly endorsed as a catalyst for accountability and parental engagement (UNESCO 2023).…

A ceremonial milestone after eighteen months of silent implementation When Minister of Economy, Plan and Regional Integration Ludovic Ngatsé finally declared Proclimat Congo operational on 16 June 2025, seasoned observers noted that the programme had already been active on the ground since October 2023. The choreography of the Brazzaville ceremony, attended by senior World Bank officials, therefore served less as a commencement than as a diplomatic signal that the Republic of Congo intends to anchor its development narrative in climate credibility. Financing architecture that blends loans, grants and concessional windows Proclimat’s US$132 million envelope combines a US$70 million loan from…

A measured recalibration in Brazzaville In a discreet yet carefully choreographed ceremony held in the northern quarter of Brazzaville, Félix Guy Charles Paul Manckoundia confirmed a downsizing of Union pour la Nation’s National Executive Committee from fifteen to thirteen personalities. Local press outlets such as Les Dépêches de Brazzaville reported a setting that was deliberately compact, eschewing the grandiose rallies that sometimes characterise opposition announcements. The President of the year-old formation framed the exercise as “an act of managerial sobriety”, a phrase that resonates with regional diplomatic observers who have increasingly highlighted the need for cost-efficient party machinery in Central…

Djiri’s Dumpsite and the Optics of Urban Modernity Travellers entering Brazzaville by the northern corridor often meet a paradoxical vista: the neatly painted façade of Djiri’s municipal offices framed against the sprawling tapestry of household refuse at nearby Bongho-Nouarra. The contrast is more than aesthetic. It speaks to the complexity confronting rapidly urbanising capitals across Central Africa, where infrastructure expansion and population growth outpace the rhythms of municipal service delivery. In this corridor, the open-air dump—expanded by months of unregulated tipping—operates as an inadvertent lens through which stakeholders gauge the credibility of Congo’s pledge to craft a modern, green and…

A strategic conversation emerges in Pointe-Noire Behind the discreet façade of the Hôtel Elaïs, overlooking the Atlantic swells that first carried prospectors to Congo-Brazzaville’s shores, a two-day conclave gathered on 26-27 June 2025. Convened by Rencontre pour la paix et les droits de l’homme (RDPH) under the stewardship of its president, Christian Mounzéo, the roundtable sought to examine a deceptively simple question: how can a hydrocarbon-dependent economy secure prosperity beyond the era of easy barrels? Representatives of energy companies, coastal communities, government agencies and international partners accepted the invitation, aware that Pointe-Noire’s refinery skyline symbolises both economic lifeline and potential…

The silent undertow of remembrance Even on tranquil evenings when the riverfront esplanade of Brazzaville glimmers with a new urban confidence, a quiet undertow of remembrance ripples beneath the surface. The nation’s collective psyche still carries fragments of the turbulence that marked the 1990s and the early 2000s, periods during which armed confrontations disrupted families and scattered communities across the Pool, Niari and Bouenza. Historians of Central Africa often remind us that societies emerging from internal conflict must translate memory into constructive nation-building lest unprocessed grief corrode the social fabric (International Crisis Group 2021). In Congo-Brazzaville, the issue is less…