Author: Congo Times

Continental stakes of UNESCO leadership race Leadership contests at UNESCO rarely capture popular imagination, yet for the diplomatic corps they can herald shifts in influence over education, culture and science agendas. The 2025 election for Director-General is no exception. Brazzaville’s endorsement of Firmin Édouard Matoko, a former UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Priority Africa and External Relations, positions the Republic of the Congo to vie for a post traditionally dominated by nations from the global North or the larger emerging economies (UNESCO Executive Board records 2021). For many African chancelleries, the prospect of an experienced continental insider at the organisation’s apex…

Opening Kick-off for Congolese Aspirations The midsummer window of European preliminary rounds may appear routine to seasoned diplomats, yet for the Republic of Congo the latest fixtures represented another stage for projecting national vitality. With Brazzaville’s domestic league still in inter-season recalibration, attention turned to a constellation of expatriate talents whose boots carried both personal ambition and a measure of collective symbolism. Their performances, observed by scouts, corporate sponsors and embassy staff alike, echoed the government’s articulation of sport as a vector of influence articulated by President Denis Sassou Nguesso in several public addresses. The current cohort operates across diverse…

A geography of abundance yet logistical hurdles Straddling the Equator, the Republic of Congo stretches from the wild Atlantic littoral to the dense upland forests that define Central Africa’s carbon lungs. Hydrological giants—the Congo and the Ogooué basins—bestow navigable corridors and untapped hydro-electric promise, yet the very luxuriance of rainforest topography complicates overland connectivity. The national road grid covers barely half of neighbouring Gabon’s density, an imbalance frequently cited by regional planners as the prime bottleneck for inland agricultural exchanges (African Development Bank 2023). Nevertheless, recent dredging of the riverine channel linking Brazzaville and Pointe-Noire reinforces a multimodal spine meant…

Equatorial Coordinates and Regional Interfaces Straddling the equator on Africa’s western flank, the Republic of the Congo commands an area of almost 342,000 km², sharing land frontiers with Gabon, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Angolan enclave of Cabinda. Its 160-kilometre Atlantic façade, modest in length yet vital in consequence, anchors the nation to global maritime trade routes and underpins its diplomatic outreach within the Gulf of Guinea coastal architecture (African Development Bank 2023). The capital, Brazzaville, perched on the right bank of the Congo River and facing Kinshasa across Malebo Pool, forms…

Brazzaville’s Melodic Envoys The Republic of Congo has long relied on musical ambassadors to project an image of vibrancy that transcends political headlines. Few carry that mantle with the poise of Fanie Fayar, whose forthcoming appearance from 25 to 27 July at the Karibu Africa Festival in France offers Brazzaville an opportunity to reaffirm its cultural credentials on a European stage. Government officials familiar with the itinerary view her set as part of a broader diplomatic effort to promote national heritage through the arts, a strategy encouraged by the Ministry of Culture and the Congolese embassy in Paris. The Strategic…

A strategic crossroads in the Congo Basin On 30 July Brazzaville will once again host the Mbongui de la Femme Africaine, a forum that has matured into a regional observatory of gender-smart policy design. The choice of the Congolese capital is anything but incidental: situated at the political crossroads of Central Africa, Brazzaville offers diplomatic visibility while echoing President Denis Sassou Nguesso’s stated commitment to the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Government advisers privately concede that the initiative dovetails with the national Development Plan 2022-2026, which identifies women’s economic empowerment as an accelerator of…

An African Voice in Global Management Debate At a juncture where African financial centres seek greater intellectual autonomy, the July release of “Problematiques and Memories of Management” by Cédric Jovial Ondaye-Ebauh offers more than regional colour. The 112-page essay, issued by the Paris-based house Jets d’Encre, positions Brazzaville as a locus of high-level reflection on corporate governance, resonating with contemporaneous African Development Bank calls for strengthened managerial capacity across the continent (African Development Bank, 2023). Legacy Theories under Contemporary Scrutiny Ondaye-Ebauh proceeds with deliberate respect for the canonical architecture erected by Henri Fayol, Peter Drucker and Frederick Herzberg, yet he…

African book diplomacy on the Ébrié Lagoon Abidjan’s Plateau district, normally animated by the cadence of commercial exchanges, has momentarily shifted its tempo to a quieter yet persuasive register, that of letters and the arts. The eighth Meeting International du Livre et des Arts Associés—better known by its mellifluous acronym MILA—has unfurled its banners along the Ébrié Lagoon, projecting Côte d’Ivoire’s ambition to serve as a regional agora for intellectual cross-fertilisation. According to organisers from the association Qoiquo, more than six thousand visitors, publishers and creators are expected during the three-day conclave, a figure that confirms the festival’s elevation into…

A Concert Framed as Cultural Diplomacy When the spotlight sweeps across Espace Exo-Bus on 26 July, the evening will resonate far beyond the perimeter of Brazzaville’s riverfront boulevard. In the eyes of many diplomats stationed in the Congo, the debut of Chikito Makinu—hailed domestically as “Le Prince Golois”—is regarded as yet another illustration of the government’s long-standing reliance on cultural diplomacy to project stability and refinement. Since President Denis Sassou Nguesso’s 2022 National Culture Strategy emphasised rumba as a ‘vector of unity’ (Ministry of Culture communiqué, 2023), each high-profile performance has doubled as a reminder that the Republic of Congo…

A Turning Tide in Inclusive Skills Training The low hum of computers in a modest classroom of southern Brazzaville tells a story rarely heard beyond the Congo River. Since 2022 the Centre de formation des jeunes vivant avec handicap, widely known as Cenfor-Jh, has enrolled cohorts of deaf students in accelerated digital courses designed to ease their transition into the city’s formal labour market. According to founder Edgar Bavoumina, the project sprang from the winning proposal “Numérique pour tous”, selected by the Youth Challenge jointly organised by UNICEF, UNDP and the Congolese government (UNICEF, 2023). What might appear a peripheral…