Author: Congo Times

A Cartographic Prelude to Diplomacy That borders can speak the language of statecraft is rarely as evident as in the Republic of the Congo, a nation whose contours negotiate six neighbours, two hemispheres and one of the planet’s most voluminous river basins. Diplomats long posted in Brazzaville point out that maps of the country perform a dual function: they chart space and, more subtly, they chart influence. From the coastal town of Pointe-Noire, where Atlantic swells meet Africa’s second-largest rainforest, to the Sangha highlands guarding Mount Nabemba at 1,020 metres, each altitude shift carries implications for trade, security and environmental…

Brazzaville’s Riverine Capital and Demographic Gravity Perched on the right bank of the Congo River, Brazzaville concentrates more than a third of the national population and functions as a natural hinge between maritime trade routes and the continental interior. The UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs estimates that urbanisation in Congo-Brazzaville has reached 67 per cent, a ratio far above the regional average (UN DESA 2022). This demographic gravitation endows the capital with diplomatic clout: visiting delegations from Kinshasa cross Malebo Pool in less than an hour, while embassies accredited to several Central African states increasingly favour Brazzaville’s calmer…

Pointe-Noire forum anchors fiscal predictability From 10 to 12 July, the Atlantic port city of Pointe-Noire became the epicentre of Congolese hydrocarbon diplomacy as Minister of Hydrocarbons Bruno Jean Richard Itoua chaired the statutory price-setting meeting. Gathered around the same table were reservoir engineers, fiscal experts and senior executives from the main operators, including TotalEnergies EP Congo, Eni Congo and Perenco. Their mandate, framed by production-sharing contracts and domestic regulations, was straightforward yet delicate: to translate three months of trading data into official sale prices that will guide both state revenue forecasts and corporate lifting programmes until October. The mechanism,…

A Tradition of Excellence at the Heart of Brazzaville The midday sun of 14 July lent a ceremonial glow to the parade ground of Brazzaville’s École Militaire Préparatoire Général Leclerc, where 428 cadets, spotless in khaki and scarlet, heard their names proclaimed against the backdrop of a 100 percent success rate. The school’s average mark of 18.12 out of 20 comfortably surpassed last year’s already formidable performance, a consistency that has become almost expected within this storied institution founded in 1936 and revitalised in 2007 under President Denis Sassou Nguesso’s defence modernisation strategy (Congolese Ministry of Defence communiqué, 2025). Metrics…

An Encouraging Statistical Upswing in 2025 The definitive results of the June 2025 technical and professional baccalaureate have injected a cautious optimism into Congo-Brazzaville’s educational landscape. According to figures released by the national board of examinations, 7 681 of the 15 843 candidates who sat for the assessment obtained their diploma, lifting the success rate to 48.48 percent, a leap of more than five percentage points compared with the previous session’s 43 percent. While still shy of the symbolic 50 percent threshold, the progression is read in Brazzaville as a concrete sign that the reforms launched after the 2022 sectoral…

A Golden Milestone for Parliamentary Multilateralism The gilded chandeliers of the French National Assembly offered a fitting backdrop to a session that carried both ceremonial weight and diplomatic urgency. Celebrating five decades of existence, the Assemblée parlementaire de la Francophonie welcomed 84 national and regional delegations for a deliberation that extended far beyond questions of protocol. The attendance figure—over two hundred parliamentarians—underscored the organisation’s evolution from a cultural initiative of the early 1970s into a fully-fledged platform where geopolitical trajectories are tested and occasionally recalibrated. Speakers alternated between French and a studied multilingualism, signalling a recognition that the promotion of…

Brazzaville Prepares a Pan-African Crescendo In a city already renowned for its role in Central African mediation, Brazzaville now fine-tunes a different register of influence. The twelfth edition of the Pan-African Music Festival, scheduled from 19 to 26 July, is expected to gather delegations from more than forty states according to the festival secretariat. Rehearsals at the Sony Labou Tansi Cultural Centre reveal an atmosphere equal parts discipline and exhilaration. Franco-Congolese choreographer Gervais Tomadiatounga orchestrates a forty-minute tableau designed to mirror the continent’s rhythmic diversity, from the maringa cadences of Sierra Leone to Congolese rumba, recently inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative…

Civil Platforms Harmonise Voices Ahead of 2026 Three years before voters cast their ballots, a mosaic of civic organisations gathered under the Coordination nationale des réseaux et associations pour la gouvernance démocratique et électorale, known by its French acronym Coraged, to evaluate lessons from past cycles and outline mitigative strategies for 2026. Convened in Brazzaville and steered by Céphas Germain Ewangui, secretary-permanent of the Consultative Council of Civil Society and Non-Governmental Organisations, the assembly echoed a unifying call: political actors should regard elections as a civic festival rather than a zero-sum contest. The tone was conciliatory yet firm, emphasising that…

Brazzaville Confirms July 2025 Dates Amid Budgetary Prudence In the wood-panelled press room of the Ministry of Cultural, Tourism, Artistic and Leisure Industries, Minister Marie-France Hélène Lydie Pongault ended weeks of speculation by announcing that the twelfth edition of the Pan-African Music Festival will unfold from 19 to 26 July 2025. Her declaration, delivered with measured confidence, made two points unmistakably clear: the festival will indeed take place and it will do so in a deliberately streamlined form. The opening ceremony, traditionally staged in the exuberant setting of Brazzaville’s national stadium, is migrating to the more intimate Palais des Congrès.…

Francophone Diplomacy as a Convergence Platform The ornate Salle Lamartine, temporarily transformed into a hub of Francophone diplomacy, offered a symbolically dense backdrop for the dialogue between Isidore Mvouba and Yaël Braun-Pivet. Both Speakers framed their encounter as a natural extension of the shared linguistic and cultural space curated by the Assemblée parlementaire de la Francophonie, whose golden-jubilee session convened legislators from five continents (APF communique, July 2024). In private remarks later relayed to journalists, Mvouba described the APF as a “strategic amplifier of soft-power synergies” uniting Brazzaville and Paris. Braun-Pivet echoed the sentiment, arguing that robust parliamentary channels can…