Author: Emmanuel Mbemba

Festive finale crowns eighteen days of creative commerce The courtyard of the National Handicrafts Agency in Brazzaville, usually an administrative enclave, transformed for eighteen days into a kaleidoscope of colours, aromas and melodies. From 17 December to 3 January, hundreds of visitors wandered between stalls where Congolese wood-carvers, textile dyers and jewellers displayed their latest creations. On the closing afternoon, laughter replaced bargaining as 250 children—sons and daughters of staff from the Ministry of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises and Handicrafts—received brand-new toys at no cost. Ministerial initiative affirms inclusive holiday spirit “For this second edition we wished to highlight solidarity,”…

Fonea Announces Free Nationwide Perlage Programme In a press briefing held on 30 December in Brazzaville, the National Fund for Employability and Apprenticeship (Fonea) signalled a new chapter in youth empowerment by unveiling a no-cost national training scheme in perlage. Backed by the Société Africaine de Recouvrement (SAR), the initiative is designed to equip 3,000 Congolese aged between sixteen and thirty-five with market-ready skills in the meticulous art of bead-craft. One-half of the cohort will be welcomed in Brazzaville and Pointe-Noire during a pilot phase, before the project radiates across the country. Transforming an Under-Explored Art into an Economic Lever…

A cross-river regulatory handshake Separated by only a few kilometres of river yet governed by distinct legal frameworks, the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo have long sought to harmonise their financial regulations. The working session of 29 December between Jean-Pierre Nonault, Director-General of the Brazzaville-based Directorate-General of National Financial Institutions (DGIFN), and Alain Kaninda Ngalula, Director-General of Kinshasa’s Insurance Regulation and Control Authority (ARCA), marks a tangible step in that direction. According to both officials, the meeting set out a common roadmap to turn digitalisation into the backbone of insurance supervision, customer protection and market deepening…

Council of Ministers reinforces mining roadmap Meeting on 31 December under the chairmanship of President Denis Sassou Nguesso, Congo-Brazzaville’s Council of Ministers closed the year with a resolute signal to the extractive industry. Two draft decrees allocating polymetal valorisation permits to Baouchi SARLU and two further texts attributing potash research licences to Soremi SARLU were endorsed, the government spokesperson Thierry Lezin Moungalla announced in Brazzaville. The decisions, taken during the last cabinet session of 2025, align with the executive’s oft-stated ambition to broaden the country’s economic base while respecting the statutory safeguards embedded in the 2016 Mining Code. Baouchi SARLU…

Petroleum as Collateral: A Central African Pattern From Pointe-Noire to Ndjamena, the 2010s were marked by an urgent quest for liquidity among oil-exporting governments. Instead of issuing Eurobonds or approaching multilateral lenders, several capitals accepted pre-financing facilities from global trading houses. The mechanism is seductively simple: barrels of future crude are pledged in exchange for immediate dollars. Yet its long-term consequences are anything but simple, as the amount due fluctuates with production volumes, price volatility and opaque interest schedules. Independent audits by the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative indicate that, across Central Africa, oil-backed loans exceeded 15 % of total public…

Steering Committee Endorses Expanded Youth Ambition On 26 December in Brazzaville the steering committee of the Social Protection and Productive Inclusion of Youth Project, better known by its French acronym PSIPJ, convened for its third ordinary session. Chaired by Sylvain Lekaka, Chief of Staff to the Minister of Economy, Planning and Regional Integration, the meeting adopted the 2026 Work Plan and Budget. The document lifts the programme’s sights toward 45 000 direct beneficiaries next year—40 000 aspiring entrepreneurs and 5 000 trainees in skills identified as priority for the national labour market. The decision crowns a year of consolidation during…

A strategic shift from fallow to fertile ground On the red lateritic soils of the Lekoumou plateau, a discreet transformation is under way. Guided by the directives of President Denis Sassou Nguesso and orchestrated by Minister of Agriculture Paul Valentin Ngobo, three protected agricultural zones—Mayéyé 2, Moulimba 2 and Kolo—are being repositioned as engines of national revival. Where seasonal plots once alternated between short-cycle subsistence crops and lengthy fallow, secure land tenure and targeted public investment now anchor what officials describe as a forward-looking pact between the State and family farming. Presidential vision anchored in protected zones Launching the latest…

External Reserves Slide Raises Regional Vigilance The Banque des États de l’Afrique centrale (BEAC) has sounded an unmistakable note of caution after recording a new deterioration in CEMAC’s external buffers. As of 31 October 2025, the stock of foreign-exchange reserves held on behalf of Cameroon, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Chad, the Central African Republic and Congo-Brazzaville reached 6.203 trillion CFA francs, down 146 billion year-on-year and 1.133 trillion relative to end-December 2024. Net external assets tracked on a daily basis, which incorporate gold holdings and Special Drawing Rights, shrank by 7.1 percent year-on-year by 25 November 2025, extending a steady decline…

Brazzaville workshop spotlights a decisive framework The cavernous conference room of a Brazzaville hotel, temporarily turned into a control tower of development finance, hosted on 15 and 16 December the annual review 2025 and planning exercise for 2026 of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). In an atmosphere equal parts technical and political, Catia Dupreville, UNFPA’s Chief of International Operations, unfolded the institution’s Harmonised Approach to Cash Transfers, better known by its acronym HACT. The message was unambiguous: without strict respect for the framework, no disbursement can be envisaged. “HACT is not an additional layer of bureaucracy; it is the…

Senate backs a cautious yet confident revision In a solemn plenary session on 18 December, senators in Brazzaville voted in favour of the rectified finance bill for 2025, endorsing revenue projections of CFA 2 550.694 billion against expenditure of CFA 2 198.794 billion. The arithmetic yields an anticipated surplus of CFA 352 billion, a signal of renewed fiscal headroom at a moment when many economies continue to navigate global uncertainty. The text amends Law 47-2024 of 30 December 2024 as authorised under Article 29 of Organic Law 36-2017, thereby complying with the constitutional architecture governing public finances. Fine-tuning priorities within…