Author: Congo Times

Diplomacy meets forestry in Brazzaville When thirty delegates settled into a modest conference room on Boulevard Denis Sassou Nguesso, the task before them was deceptively simple: square Congo’s economic aspirations with the ecological integrity of the second-largest rainforest on earth. The multi-stakeholder forum, convened by the Congolese Observatory of Human Rights and the Rencontre pour la Paix et les Droits de l’Homme, unfolded under the discreet patronage of the United Kingdom and the technical guidance of the European NGO Fern. It was the kind of small but symbolically charged gathering that has, in recent years, become a laboratory for African…

Smaller Cheques, Louder Claims of Stability Shareholders of the National Office of Telecommunications of Burkina Faso (ONATEL S.A.) woke up to a mixed message this summer: the company’s board approved a 12.887-billion-FCFA net dividend for the 2024 fiscal year, to be distributed on 21 July 2025. At 189.52 FCFA per share, that cheque is 29 percent lighter than last year’s 266.44 FCFA, even as the operator proclaimed “solid fundamentals in a challenging macroeconomic environment” (ONATEL 2024 Annual Report). The contradiction is more apparent than real, executives argue, citing the need to preserve cash for spectrum renewals and 4G densification. Earnings…

Pointe-Noire hosts an unusual gathering on the future beyond crude The lobby of the Hôtel Elaïs, more accustomed to signing bonuses than existential debates, morphed into a vivid laboratory of ideas on 26–27 June 2025. Convened by the Rencontre pour la paix et les droits de l’homme (R.d.p.h) under the stewardship of activist-diplomat Christian Mounzéo, the conference entitled “Preparing the After-Oil Congo” brought together oil majors, river-delta communities, senior civil servants, international donors and a sprinkling of academic economists. The objective, as framed in the opening address, was less a ceremonial nod to sustainable development than a candid autopsy of…

Brazzaville’s Deluge and the Quiet Urgency of Coordination When torrential rains lashed Brazzaville in early June, the Congolese capital once again learned that hydrology respects neither geopolitical discourse nor municipal budgets. By mid-month, runoff cascading from the Massif du Chaillu had transformed the low-lying quarters of Talangaï and Mfilou into archipelagos of mud. The Ministry of Social Affairs now recognises more than 3 400 affected households and a damage inventory that ranges from collapsed retaining walls to toppled power lines. While seasonal flooding is hardly novel along the right bank of the Congo River, the breadth of this year’s impact,…

Demographic dividend collides with a data vacuum In the corridors of many foreign ministries, Central Africa is still too often discussed through the prism of security or extractive commodities. Yet the region’s demographic profile is quietly altering its economic narrative. More than sixty per cent of citizens in the Republic of Congo, Gabon, Rwanda and their neighbours are below twenty-five, according to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA 2022). Until recently, however, decision-makers lacked granular insight into how this youth bulge earns, spends and aspires. The market-research firm Target has attempted to fill that void,…

Diplomatic Courtship Revived in Brazzaville When the Italian delegation, led by Deputy Foreign Minister Edmondo Cirielli, landed in Brazzaville in late May, the choreography felt familiar. Rome has multiplied such missions since its 2022 “Mattei Plan” sought to re-anchor Italian diplomacy in Africa. Yet the Business Forum 2025 marked the first bilateral platform entirely co-designed with Congolese trade bodies since the oil-centric accords of the early 2000s. Congolese Minister of International Cooperation Denis Christel Sassou-Nguesso framed the event as a pivot from extractive dependence toward diversified, high-value chains. Italian envoys reciprocated with the mantra of “co-development”, a term that, in…

A Seasoned Conflict Reaches the Beltway That the latest attempt to end the M23 insurrection will be notarised not in Kinshasa, Kigali or even Nairobi but on the banks of the Potomac speaks volumes about the international fatigue surrounding a conflict that has displaced more than 1.5 million civilians since late 2021 (UNHCR, February 2024). Washington’s decision to serve as convener follows months of shuttle diplomacy by Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Molly Phee, who, according to a senior State Department official, saw “diminishing returns” in regional forums and opted for “a venue both parties perceive as neutral…

Diplomatic Pedagogy Meets Hydrocarbon Realpolitik On 24 June in the Mediterranean port city of Oran, an ostensibly modest signing ceremony drew unusually keen attention from African energy observers. Maixent Raoul Ominga, chief executive of the Société Nationale des Pétroles du Congo, endorsed a training convention with the Algerian Petroleum Institute that will dispatch 19 Congolese students into a five-year engineering curriculum supervised by the University of M’Hamed Bougara in Boumerdès. While the headcount is small, the symbolism is sizeable: two state oil champions—Congo’s SNPC and Algeria’s Sonatrach—are translating hydrocarbons cooperation into educational statecraft at a moment when both governments face…

A capital born of colonial railways now courts multipolar partners When the Congo–Ocean Railway first linked Brazzaville to the Atlantic littoral in 1934, it entrenched the city’s role as a logistical hinge of French Equatorial Africa. Six decades after independence in 1960, that same corridor symbolises Brazzaville’s quest for diversified partnerships: European operators maintain rolling stock, Chinese contractors modernise stations and Turkish firms eye the port of Pointe-Noire. The capital’s boulevards still bear Haussmannian traces, yet diplomatic traffic has become resolutely multipolar, reflecting President Denis Sassou-Nguesso’s stated ambition to pursue what his foreign ministry calls “an all-azimuth foreign policy” (Ministry…

Luanda Sets the Stage for a Continental Reality Check The marble halls of Luanda’s Talatona Convention Center reverberated this week with a familiar mantra: Africa must trade more with itself. Addressing the opening plenary of the US-Africa Business Summit, African Union Commission Chairperson Mahmoud Ali Youssouf warned that the continent’s intra-African trade hovers around a modest 18 percent—far below Europe’s 60 percent or Asia’s 50 percent (UNCTAD, 2023). His prescription was unequivocal: remove tariff walls, streamline visas and accelerate the African Continental Free Trade Area, AfCFTA. AfCFTA’s Promises Meet Ground-Level Complexities Since its launch in 2021, the AfCFTA has been…