Author: Inonga Mbala

Strategic Urban Sanitation Challenges in Brazzaville A decade of steady demographic growth has stretched Brazzaville’s underground arteries to their limits. According to the World Bank, the Congolese capital has been gaining almost 3 % in population annually, while nearly 40 % of households still rely on informal connections to water and wastewater grids. The Ministry of Urban Sanitation, now led by Juste Désiré Mondélé, has therefore placed the mapping and rehabilitation of buried pipes at the heart of the government’s 2022–2026 National Development Plan. Congolese officials argue that improving subterranean infrastructure is not merely a technical endeavour but a public-health…

Youth Demographics and National Stakes In the Republic of Congo, seventy-six percent of citizens are under thirty-five, a statistic the World Bank has repeatedly called both a demographic dividend and a looming challenge (World Bank 2023). With hydrocarbons still accounting for more than half of export revenues, economic diversification has become a strategic imperative; yet youth unemployment hovers officially around twenty percent and is widely believed to exceed that figure in urban centres such as Brazzaville and Pointe-Noire. Against this backdrop, a policy instrument capable of translating population pressure into productive capital carries considerable geopolitical significance. Diplomats in the region…

Grass-Roots Diplomacy Through Communal Meals In the sultry port city of Pointe-Noire, the Association des Jeunes Mères du Congo (AJMC) chose the last Sunday of July to launch a deceptively simple concept: sharing a plate of food. The programme, eloquently entitled “Un repas pour tous,” offers a free hot meal every Wednesday in Mpaka, the vibrant heart of the Tié-Tié district. At first glance the gesture appears philanthropic; yet for AJMC president Michaelle Moutouari Tchicamboud the initiative is nothing less than an exercise in what she calls “micro-diplomacy” – strengthening social bonds in a district that mirrors the ethnic and…

Historic Throne Day Address and Its Stakes Every 29 July, the Throne Day address operates as a compass for Morocco’s political class and partner capitals alike. The twenty-sixth speech of King Mohammed VI, delivered from the Royal Palace in Tetouan, reaffirmed a doctrine of gradual modernisation tempered by social cohesion (Royal Court broadcast, 29 July 2024). By foregrounding the correction of territorial disparities the monarch arguably recast the social contract, insisting that macroeconomic vibrancy must “touch every province and every citizen.” Seasoned diplomats in Rabat note that Throne speeches rarely introduce abrupt turns; rather, they consolidate incremental reforms and alert…

A strategic geography at Africa’s equatorial hinge Few African states combine coastal access, fluvial depth and equatorial biodiversity as seamlessly as the Republic of the Congo. Straddling the Equator between 4° and 5° latitude south, the country occupies a pivotal corridor connecting the Gulf of Guinea to the continental interior. Diplomats frequently note that Brazzaville’s ability to address landlocked neighbours such as the Central African Republic while maintaining an Atlantic shoreline grants the Congolese state a dual maritime–continental outlook, a “Janus geography” as phrased by a senior official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2023 interview). The coastal corridor and…

A Symbolic Judgment Echoing through Likouala The quiet river town of Impfondo rarely captures the international spotlight, yet its Tribunal of First Instance has issued a ruling that resonates well beyond the Sangha River basin. On 26 June the court sentenced three Congolese citizens to prison terms of two and three years, complemented by a collective fine of one million CFA francs and civil damages amounting to three million. The defendants admitted to possessing a freshly tanned panther skin, four giant pangolin claws and several kilogrammes of pangolin scales—trophies explicitly banned under Law 37-2008 on Wildlife and Protected Areas. For…

A calibrated verdict with regional resonance On 26 June the Tribunal of First Instance in Impfondo, capital of Likouala, imposed three-year imprisonment on one defendant and two-year terms on his accomplices for offences related to the trafficking of a panther skin, claws and a sizeable cache of giant pangolin scales. The court simultaneously levied fines and civil damages amounting to four million CFA francs, a figure that, while significant in local economic terms, remains proportionate to precedents recorded in similar cases in Owando and Dolisie according to data compiled by the Wildlife Conservation Society. Observers from the Projet d’Appui à…

Diplomatic Calendar Marks a Valedictory Visit It was a carefully choreographed moment on 24 July in Brazzaville when Maurizio Cascioli, whose tenure as resident director of the French Development Agency is drawing to a close, stepped once more into the marbled corridors of the Ministry of Environment, Sustainable Development and the Congo Basin. Minister Arlette Soudan-Nonault, long a public advocate of Congo’s climate diplomacy, received the envoy with a cordiality that belied the gravity of their agenda. The session, officially a farewell courtesy call, doubled as a strategic checkpoint in the Republic of Congo’s still-nascent but fast-evolving climate-adaptation drive (Les…

A courtroom verdict reverberates through Likouala The recent ruling of the Court of First Instance in Impfondo, capital of the remote Likouala department, would normally have attracted only modest local attention. Instead, the sentencing of three offenders—Jodel Mouandola, Arel Ebouzi and Parfait Mbekele—to terms ranging from two to three years of imprisonment has circulated swiftly through diplomatic briefings and environmental platforms alike. The men were apprehended in late May in flagrante delicto with a leopard pelt, four giant pangolin claws and a sizeable cache of pangolin scales, contraband that regional investigators have come to recognise as a lucrative micro-commodity on…

A measured yet firm ruling from Likouala bench The Tribunal de Grande Instance of Impfondo, sitting less than forty kilometres from the winding bends of the Oubangui River, delivered on 26 June a judgment that resonated well beyond the dense canopy of the Likouala rainforest. By imposing three years’ imprisonment on Jodel Mouandola and two years each on Arel Ebouzi and Parfait Mbekele, the bench demonstrated that the 2008 Wildlife and Protected Areas Act is no paper tiger. The additional monetary penalties—one million CFA francs in fines and three million in civil damages—complete a package intended, in the words of…