Author: Emmanuel Mbala

Brazzaville June Floods Challenge Urban Preparedness At dawn on 14 June, an unusually intense cloudburst brought nearly a month’s worth of precipitation over Brazzaville within a few hours, overwhelming drainage canals in the northern arrondissements of Talangaï and Mfilou. According to preliminary data compiled by the Ministry of Social Affairs, seven lives were lost, 6 800 households were rendered homeless and roughly 28 075 citizens found themselves in urgent need of shelter, potable water and medical assistance. Engineers from the National Institute of Geography have since confirmed that several culverts had already approached their design limits after earlier seasonal showers,…

UN Signals Imperative of a Pragmatic Regulatory Architecture The marble halls of the ministère congolais des Postes, des Télécommunications et de l’Économie numérique resonated this week with an appeal that was both urgent and cautiously optimistic. “We must build a digital-transformation trajectory that strengthens cybersecurity, respects user privacy and protects critical infrastructure,” insisted Abdourahamane Diallo, the United Nations Resident Coordinator in the Republic of Congo, at the official launch of the thirteenth Central African Cyber Drill. His intervention, though couched in the precise language of diplomacy, underlined a reality that global indices corroborate: Africa’s cyberspace is expanding at a pace…

Brazzaville’s Diplomatic Signal on Digital Sovereignty When Prime Minister Anatole Collinet Makosso pressed the symbolic start button for the 13th Regional Cyber Drill, the gesture resonated well beyond the sleek conference hall of the Ministry of Posts, Telecommunications and the Digital Economy. In a capital better known for its role in classic geopolitics along the Congo River, Brazzaville deliberately projected a modern form of sovereignty: the capacity to defend data flows, protect critical infrastructure and build trust in the digital marketplace. The government’s message, articulated in meticulously calibrated diplomatic language, is that safeguarding cyberspace is indistinguishable from safeguarding territorial integrity.…

Methodology behind the United Nations’ Scorecard In a carefully choreographed ceremony at the Palais des Congrès in Brazzaville, the United Nations Country Team presented its Results Report 2024 to senior ministers, ambassadors and representatives of civil society. The document aggregates more than eighty performance indicators drawn from the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework, national statistics and third-party audits. According to the Resident Coordinator’s office, the methodology privileges government-owned data sets supplemented by household surveys financed by the UN Development Programme and the African Development Bank. This hybrid approach, described by a UN statistician as ‘evidence with local DNA’ (UNCT…

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…

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.…

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…

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…

Shifting fault lines and the ascent of female agency Central Africa now occupies a pivotal space where ecological assets, strategic minerals and security corridors collide. Within this high-stakes arena, a cohort of women has moved beyond symbolic representation to assume operational command of key policy portfolios, from sovereign debt renegotiation to multilateral climate talks. Regional observers note that their ascent coincides with both demographic pressure and a search for governance models able to deliver palpable social dividends (African Development Bank, 2024). Far from a mere gender narrative, their leadership echoes a broader recalibration of influence between states, cities, indigenous communities…

A decree redefining two-wheel mobility in the Republic of Congo Published in the Official Gazette on 9 July 2024 and co-signed by four cabinet members, Decree N° 2024-324 codifies what had long been informally practised: only Congolese citizens may operate motorcycle-taxis for passenger transport. Article 9 formulates the principle with lawyerly precision while the remaining provisions delineate licence categories, safety gear obligations and geographic zones of operation. The text emerged after several months of consultation between the Ministry of Transport, municipal authorities and syndicates eager to move from a legal grey zone to a regulated marketplace. By June 2025 the…