Author: Congo Times

A ceremonial moment with strategic undertones The applause that filled Abidjan’s hemicycle on 30 June went well beyond protocol. When Isidore Mvouba, President of the National Assembly of the Republic of Congo, accepted Adama Bictogo’s invitation to address Ivorian lawmakers, the gesture signalled the elevation of a long-standing political affinity into a deliberately structured partnership. Diplomats posted in both capitals note that personal chemistry between Presidents Denis Sassou Nguesso and Alassane Ouattara already lubricates executive channels, yet parliamentary convergence had remained comparatively informal. Mvouba’s presence therefore served as both symbol and instrument: symbol of a cross-Gulf camaraderie unbroken since the…

Ceremonial Change of Guard in Riyadh Echoes a Wider Geoeconomic Rebalancing The marble-lined hall of the Saudi Ministry of Finance offered a telling backdrop on 1 July 2025 as regional ministers and African envoys convened to ratify the succession at the helm of the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa. The setting was neither Khartoum, where BADEA was born in 1974, nor Nouakchott, the home capital of the outgoing director general, but Riyadh – a deliberate nod to the Kingdom’s growing convening power within the Gulf Cooperation Council and its heightened appetite for African opportunities (Saudi Vision 2030 Progress…

A Surge of Water, a Test of Coordination When torrential rains swelled the Congo and Djiri rivers in late November, low-lying neighbourhoods of Brazzaville were quickly submerged. According to preliminary figures from the National Disaster Management Centre, water levels exceeded seasonal averages by almost eighty centimetres, displacing roughly 5,000 households, most of them in the populous sixth arrondissement, Talangaï. The event is part of a worrying hydrological trend that regional climatologists link to a warming Atlantic and the current El Niño episode (Congolese Meteorological Directorate, December 2023). The floods therefore became an immediate litmus test for the interplay between domestic…

A Convergence of Nautical Agendas The discreet yet symbolically weighty encounter held on 1 July in Brazzaville between Éric Olivier Sébastien Dibas-Franck, secretary-general of Congo’s Inter-ministerial Committee on State Action at Sea and Inland Waters, and Egypt’s ambassador Imane Samy Yakout unfolded against a backdrop of rising geopolitical attention to African maritime spaces. While the rendez-vous lasted less than an hour, both diplomats emerged with an unmistakable sense of urgency. “We expect to seal a memorandum on maritime security in the near future,” the ambassador underlined, her comment hinting at the political will in Cairo to transcend customary diplomatic courtesies.…

Federal Council inauguration signals institutional momentum Gathered in late June beneath the high rafters of Brazzaville’s Palais des Sports, delegates from every departmental league convened the first session of the newly elected Federal Council of the Congolese Basketball Federation. The atmosphere, participants recalled, blended ceremony with the quiet urgency of a transition year. Fabrice Makaya Mateve, who secured the federation’s chair last November, used his opening remarks to frame the gathering as a point of institutional continuity, emphasising an ethos of service, consensus and cohesion that mirrors the wider governmental vocabulary of national development. His pledge to ‘refuse the comfort…

A framework anchored in national priorities When Resident Coordinator Abdourahamane Diallo addressed the Congolese press corps on 30 June, he foregrounded a triad of priorities—youth, climate and collective coherence—that had guided the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework throughout 2024. Far from being an exercise in donor-driven conditionality, the UNSDCF was negotiated in close concert with the Ministry of Cooperation and Regional Integration, aligning explicitly with the National Development Plan 2022-2026. This diplomatic synchrony ensured that international resources—both technical and financial—were channelled toward objectives defined in Brazzaville rather than in New York, a nuance often overlooked in discussions of development…

Metallic liquidity as a diplomatic instrument When Governor Yvon Sana Bangui confirmed on 30 June that the Bank of Central African States would circulate an additional tranche of coins across the six CEMAC economies, the statement was more than a logistical footnote. In a region where small-value transactions knit daily commerce, scarcity of change can aggravate inflation, fuel informal currency substitutes and erode confidence in the common monetary architecture. Injecting 500 million CFA francs in denominations from 1 to 500 CFA, including the newly reintroduced 200-franc piece, amounts therefore to a quiet but deliberate act of financial diplomacy. Retail microeconomics…

A railway town defined by history and demography To the traveller following the Congo-Océan Railway south-west from Mont-Mbelo, Makabana emerges as a settlement of nearly 12,000 inhabitants whose collective memory is inseparable from the manganese convoys once organised by the Compagnie minière de l’Ogooué. The industrial chapter closed in the late 1980s, yet the demographic weight of the commune – the third largest in Niari – has continued to grow at an annual 2.3 per cent, according to the National Institute of Statistics. That vitality now obliges policy-makers to reconceive Makabana not as a footnote to mining, but as a…

Strategic Significance of Agri-hub Arturo Bellezza The ribbon-cutting ceremony of 28 June, presided over by President Denis Sassou Nguesso, did not merely unveil a processing plant; it heralded a recalibration of Congo-Brazzaville’s energy narrative. The Agri-hub Arturo Bellezza, anchored in Loudima within the fertile Bouenza corridor, is designed to process oil-bearing crops into advanced biofuel feedstock for both domestic blending mandates and international supply chains. According to official statements, the facility’s first-phase capacity rests on 15 000 hectares of cultivated land, translating into an estimated 1.1 million tonnes of vegetable oil per annum (Ministry of Hydrocarbons, 2024). A Partnership Anchored…

A concession model forged in reform and revenue When the Republic of Congo adopted its celebrated 2000 Forest Code, Brazzaville sought to reconcile biodiversity preservation with industrial expansion in a sector that still contributes roughly 6 % of GDP and more than 10 000 formal jobs according to the Ministry of Forest Economy. Fifteen-year concession agreements signed between 2004 and 2008 with companies such as Congo Dejia Wood Industry and Sino-Congo Forêts were widely hailed at the time as signalling regulatory certainty, foreign-exchange earnings and rural employment (FAO, 2019). Yet the expiry of those agreements between 2019 and 2023 has…