Author: Malamu Mavungu

Crisis In Waste Management Spurs Swift State Response For several weeks the economic capital Pointe-Noire, like Brazzaville, had been grappling with mountains of refuse after the sudden suspension of services by the Lebanese firm Averda and the delayed arrival of its Turkish successor Albayrak. The interruption created a visible environmental emergency: makeshift dumps mushroomed beside markets, junctions and even under high-voltage lines. Residents voiced their concern to national authorities, pointing to threats of flooding, vector-borne diseases and power outages sparked by the practice of burning garbage to make space (Les Échos du Congo-Brazzaville). Responding to the appeal and in line…

Overflowing bins test Brazzaville’s resilience In the dense October heat the Congolese capital is holding its breath. Around the metallic skips that punctuate the freshly asphalted avenues, mounds of household refuse have risen day after day, sending acrid smells across Makélékélé, Moungali or Talangaï. Residents advance in zigzags to avoid leachate pools while storm drains, already narrow, are clogged by plastic bags carried by the first rains. The spectacle, reminiscent of previous crises, resurfaces as the personnel of Albayrak, the Turkish company entrusted with municipal collection, pursue a labour dispute that has paralysed their fleet of compactors. Health professionals quietly…

A Regional Laboratory for Community Forestry The cool morning of 14 October found thirty specialists from Congo-Brazzaville and Cameroon gathered in a discreet conference hall overlooking the Djoué River. Under the flag of the Project for Strengthening and Innovation in Participatory Forestry for the Benefit of Local Communities on the Edge of Protected Areas of the Congo Basin (RiFoP), they were tasked with assessing a concept that is raising expectations as much as questions: the “household agroforest”. Developed as a sub-component of RiFoP, the approach assigns clearly delimited forest plots to individual families or clusters of related households, who are…

Djiri’s Dumpsite and the Optics of Urban Modernity Travellers entering Brazzaville by the northern corridor often meet a paradoxical vista: the neatly painted façade of Djiri’s municipal offices framed against the sprawling tapestry of household refuse at nearby Bongho-Nouarra. The contrast is more than aesthetic. It speaks to the complexity confronting rapidly urbanising capitals across Central Africa, where infrastructure expansion and population growth outpace the rhythms of municipal service delivery. In this corridor, the open-air dump—expanded by months of unregulated tipping—operates as an inadvertent lens through which stakeholders gauge the credibility of Congo’s pledge to craft a modern, green and…

Historic Weight of the Timber Sector Few sectors embody the economic and diplomatic identity of the Republic of Congo as vividly as timber. Wood products represent roughly 7 % of national GDP and a quarter of non-oil export revenue, providing direct employment to more than 20 000 people according to the World Bank (2023). Brazzaville’s partners, from Beijing to Brussels, see in the dense Congolese rainforest not only a source of precious hardwoods but also a carbon sink of global relevance. Such dual significance explains why each administrative decision on concessions immediately echoes through chambers of commerce, development banks and…

Brazzaville’s green ambition gains momentum A careful, almost discreet recalibration of the Congolese tourism narrative has been unfolding in government salons and private boardrooms alike. While hydrocarbons still dominate macro-economic statistics, the Ministry of Environment, Sustainable Development and the Congo Basin has quietly embraced a complementary ambition: to transmute the country’s largely intact tropical forests into an internationally credible destination for sustainable travel. The partnership sealed this summer with Wild Safari Tours, an African operator known for its low-impact logistics, marks a decisive step in that direction. Between carbon sinks and market demand: the rationale for sustainable tourism The Republic…

Kinkala Workshop Signals New Phase in Climate Governance Under the discreetly clouded skies of early July, the town of Kinkala became the stage for a conversation that has long hovered beneath the surface of Congo-Brazzaville’s climate agenda. Officials, community leaders and civil-society representatives gathered to dissect—and, crucially, to localise—the World Bank’s safeguard doctrine through the ProClimat grievance mechanism. The session, opened and closed by the director of cabinet for the Pool’s prefect, Noël Emmanuel Mazouka, translated lofty multilateral guidelines into practical steps intended to reassure citizens who have historically felt distant from decision-making on development projects. World Bank Safeguards Shape…