Author: Congo Times

A gateway to world-class research for Congolese talent Applications are now open for the 2026-2027 cohort of the Faculty for the Future programme, an initiative of the Schlumberger Foundation that funds PhD and postdoctoral studies for women from developing and emerging economies. For candidates in the Republic of Congo, the call constitutes far more than a scholarship announcement: it is an invitation to join a community of nearly one thousand fellows who have, over the past two decades, translated laboratory breakthroughs abroad into socially useful innovation at home. The Foundation will accept dossiers until 7 November 2025, giving prospective fellows…

Swift interception in Bouenza At daybreak on 28 October 2025, a joint patrol of the Bouenza gendarmerie and the departmental forestry service moved discreetly through Nkayi’s peripheral market. Acting on verified intelligence shared by the Wildlife Law Enforcement Support Project (PALF), the officers apprehended a Congolese national in his forties whose satchel contained a sedated chimpanzee infant scarcely six months old. Within minutes the suspect admitted that the primate, taken two months earlier from the Kindamba woodlands, was destined for an illicit sale to a middle-man allegedly linked to buyers in neighbouring countries. His confession, confirmed by initial questioning in…

A solemn pledge in Moungali The modest courtyard that hosts the fresh headquarters of the Rassemblement des démocrates panafricains (RDP) in Moungali, Brazzaville’s fourth arrondissement, was unusually silent at the opening of Jean-Bonnard Moussodia’s first press conference as party leader. A minute of silence in honour of the late Guy-Brice Parfait Kolélas set the tone, before Moussodia allowed himself a measured smile: “We are gathered to give substance to a promise made to a brother,” he declared, stressing that the new formation wishes to steer clear of sterile polemics and devote its energy to “a constructive, institution-oriented opposition capable of…

Minister Mondélé’s Strategic Pitch Standing before the National Assembly, Minister of Urban Sanitation, Local Development and Road Maintenance Juste Désiré Mondélé set an assertive tone: the Accelerated Local Development Programme, or PADC, is poised to become “an instrument for transforming living standards in every district of the Republic of Congo”. His presentation retraced the programme’s genesis, from early inter-ministerial consultations to its validation by the Council of Ministers, and emphasised its political anchorage in the Head of State’s vision for balanced territorial growth (National Assembly proceedings, 2024). The initiative is valued at 738 million dollars—about 445 billion CFA francs—and will…

Brazzaville Welcomes the Second ENIA 2.0 Cohort The vast auditorium of the École du Numérique et de l’Intelligence Artificielle reverberated with youthful excitement as, on 3 November, the management of ENIA 2.0 officially introduced more than five hundred scholarship recipients to the public. Drawn from several departments, these recent secondary-school graduates are the beneficiaries of the institute’s “Bourse Mon Avenir” programme, which covers tuition, equipment and mentoring for the next three academic years. Launched in 2022, ENIA 2.0 was conceived as a response to the scarcity of specialised training in advanced computing in the Republic of Congo. Its first intake…

Ceremony Signals Fiscal Determination Beneath the high ceilings of the Ministry of Finance in Brazzaville, Director of Cabinet Paul Malié presided over the formal installation of nine central directors at the Directorate-General of Customs and Indirect Duties. The 5 November ceremony, held only five days after the officials’ nomination by Prime-Ministerial Decree 2025-440 of 31 October 2025, punctuated a decisive moment for an administration tasked with safeguarding the Treasury’s frontline revenue stream. In his address, Malié set the tone for the new tenure, reminding the appointees that customs receipts and related fiscal flows underwrite the day-to-day functioning of the Congolese…

Belém set to host a decisive COP30 Belém, capital of the Brazilian state of Pará, will become the epicentre of global climate negotiations from 10 to 21 November 2025. Delegations from more than one hundred countries are expected to converge on the Amazonian city for the thirtieth Conference of the Parties, a forum tasked with steering collective action against climate change. This edition carries a particular weight: it is explicitly framed as the rendez-vous of implementation for the 2015 Paris Agreement, a pact that has guided multilateral environmental diplomacy for a decade. Sassou Nguesso’s timely arrival and diplomatic agenda Congo-Brazzaville’s…

Scientific Diplomacy in Brazzaville The glittering conference hall of the Centre d’excellence d’Oyo momentarily shifted the geopolitical centre of Central Africa on 3 November. Flanked by researchers in white coats and diplomats in dark suits, Prime Minister Anatole Collinet Makosso pressed the symbolic switch that brought the Réseau pour la recherche sur la transition énergétique en Afrique centrale (ReTEAC) to life. The gesture carried more than ceremonial weight: it expressed a shared resolve among member states of the Economic Community of Central African States to anchor the energy transition in peer-reviewed science rather than slogans. Officials from Burundi, Cameroon, the…

Brazzaville Summit Signals Continental Momentum From 31 October to 4 November 2025 Brazzaville became the epicentre of African hydrocarbon diplomacy as the eighteen member states of the African Petroleum Producers’ Organisation (Appo) gathered for their end-of-year Executive Council and Ministerial Council. Under the chairmanship of Congo’s Minister of Hydrocarbons, Bruno Jean Richard Itoua, delegations assessed the organisation’s trajectory since its 1987 founding in Nigeria and agreed on priorities for 2026. The atmosphere was resolutely forward-looking: delegates portrayed the global energy transition not as an existential threat but as an inflection point that could consolidate African autonomy, provided that financing and…

Congo’s triumphant re-entry into global capital markets Nineteen years after its last international fundraising exercise, the Republic of Congo has returned to the stage with a USD 670 million eurobond carrying a 9.875 per cent coupon and maturing in November 2032. The notes, admitted to trading on the main market of the London Stock Exchange under the Regulation S regime, will be amortised in five equal instalments between 2028 and 2032, thereby spreading the repayment burden over the second half of the decade. The joint lead manager Citigroup placed the transaction with a book dominated by investors familiar with frontier-market…