Democratic Republic of the Congo

People and Society
Despite a wealth of fertile soil, hydroelectric power potential, and mineral resources, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) struggles with many socioeconomic problems, including high infant and maternal mortality rates, malnutrition, poor vaccination coverage, lack of access to improved water sources and sanitation, and frequent and early fertility. Ongoing conflict, mismanagement of resources, and a lack of investment have resulted in food insecurity; almost 30 percent of children under the age of 5 are malnourished. The overall coverage of basic public services – education, health, sanitation, and potable water – is very limited and piecemeal, with substantial regional and rural/urban disparities. Fertility remains high at almost 5 children per woman and is likely to remain high because of the low use of contraception and the cultural preference for larger families.
Over 200 ethnic groups populate the Democratic Republic of the Congo, of which the majority are Bantu peoples. Together, Mongo, Luba and Kongo peoples (Bantu) and Mangbetu-Azande peoples constitute around 45% of the population. The Kongo people are the largest ethnic group in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In 2017, the United Nations estimated the country’s population to be 83 million people, a rapid increase from 39.1 million in 1992 despite the ongoing war. As many as 250 ethnic groups have been identified and named. The most numerous people are the Kongo, Luba, and Mongo. About 600,000 Pygmies are the aboriginal people of the DR Congo. Although several hundred local languages and dialects are spoken, the linguistic variety is bridged both by widespread use of French and the national intermediary languages Kituba, Tshiluba, Swahili, and Lingala.
The DRC is a source and host country for refugees. Between 2012 and 2014, more than 119,000 Congolese refugees returned from the Republic of Congo to the relative stability of northwest DRC, but more than 540,000 Congolese refugees remained abroad as of year-end 2015. In addition, an estimated 3.9 million Congolese were internally displaced as of October 2017, the vast majority fleeing violence between rebel group and Congolese armed forces. Thousands of refugees have come to the DRC from neighboring countries, including Rwanda, the Central African Republic, and Burundi.
Population:
83,301,151
Nationality:
noun: Congolese (singular and plural)
Ethnic groups:
over 200 African ethnic groups of which the majority are Bantu; the four largest tribes – Mongo, Luba, Kongo (all Bantu), and the Mangbetu-Azande (Hamitic) make up about 45% of the population.
Languages:
French (official), Lingala (a lingua franca trade language), Kingwana (a dialect of Kiswahili or Swahili), Kikongo, Tshiluba.
Religions:
Roman Catholic 50%, Protestant 20%, Kimbanguist 10%, Muslim 10%, other (includes syncretic sects and indigenous beliefs) 10%.
The Pygmies, having arrived possibly during the Upper Paleolithic Period, are thought to have been the earliest inhabitants of the Congo basin. The remaining Pygmy groups—the Bambuti, the Twa, and the Babinga—inhabit the forests of Kibali and Ituri, the regions of Lakes Kivu and Tanganyika, and areas near the Lualaba, Tshuapa, Sankuru, and Ubangi rivers.
There are other small non-Bantu African populations. Adamawa-Ubangi and Central Sudanic groups that settled in the north include the Zande (Azande), the Mangbetu, the Banda, and the Barambu (Abarambo). Nilotic peoples live in the northeast and include the Alur, the Kakwa, the Bari, the Lugbara, and the Logo. Tutsi from Rwanda have historically lived in the eastern lake region. European and Asian groups constitute a significant part of the country’s migrant population; most went to Congo for temporary employment. The remaining migrant population is composed of Africans of non-Congolese nationality.
Christianity is the majority religion in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The most recent survey, conducted by the Demographic and Health Surveys Program in 2013-2014 indicated that Christians constituted 92.7% of the population (with Catholics making up 33.9%, Protestants 26.8%, and other Christians 35.8%). An indigenous religion, Kimbanguism, has the adherence of 2.8%, while Muslims make up only 1.3%. Other recent estimates have found Christianity the majority religion, followed by 95% of the population according to a 2010 Pew Research Center estimate, and 80% according to the CIA World Fact book and Pew Research Center 2013 data. Indigenous beliefs account for about 1.8–10%, and Islam for 1–12%.
There are about 35 million Catholics in the country with six archdioceses and 41 dioceses. The impact of the Roman Catholic Church in the Democratic Republic of Congo is difficult to overestimate. Schatzberg has called it the country’s “only truly national institution apart from the state.” Its schools have educated over 60% of the nation’s primary school students and more than 40% of its secondary students. The church owns and manages an extensive network of hospitals, schools, and clinics, as well as many diocesan economic enterprises, including farms, ranches, stores, and artisans’ shops
Education
As a result of the 6-year civil war in the late 1990s-early 2000s, over 5.2 million children in the country did not receive any education. Since the end of the civil war, the situation has improved tremendously, with the number of children enrolled in primary schools rising from 5.5 million in 2002 to 13.5 million in 2014, and the number of children enrolled in secondary schools rising from 2.8 million in 2007 to 4.4 million in 2014 according to UNESCO.
However, The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) education system is plagued by low coverage and poor quality. 3.5 million children of primary school age are not in school, and of those who do attend, 44 percent start school late, after the age of six. National data indicate that only 67 percent of children who enter first grade will complete sixth grade. Of those who reach 6th grade, only 75 percent will pass the exit exam.
The education system in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is governed by three government ministries: the Ministère de l’Enseignement Primaire, Secondaire et Professionnel (MEPSP), the Ministère de l’Enseignement Supérieur et Universitaire (MESU) and the Ministère des Affaires Sociales (MAS).
The Ministry of Education (MOE) is one of the most reform-focused ministries in the DRC. The Minister is the longest standing in the Cabinet and has withstood numerous reshuffles since 2006. This long-term continuity has fostered a cohesive partnership between donors and the MOE to implement key strategies, reforms, and sector plans. In addition, the government of the DRC (GDRC) has increased its financial commitment to education from 7.9 percent of its budget in 2012 to 14.7 percent in 2015.
Academic education in the DRC takes 12 years to complete, of which the first 6 are free, and lead to a certificat d’etudes primaires. This is necessary to proceed on to secondary education. Unfortunately many students especially in rural areas fail to even get this far. Secondary education (which may be either general or technical) takes a further 5 to 6 years depending on the cycle. All those who complete a diplôme d’etat are entitled to proceed on to higher education. Students may go on from primary schools to vocational schools instead, according to preferences and academic outcomes. There they can follow programs that last up to 5 years in various trades and crafts, at the conclusion of which they receive a brevet certificate.
There are many privately and publicly funded polytechnics and specialized colleges in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but only 4 state universities. These include the Universities of Goma, Kinshasa, Kongo and Lubumbashi. The latter is by far the oldest, having been founded in 1991, after functioning as a branch of the University of Zaire for 26 years. Today it offers programs in anthropology, geology, history, information sciences, languages, linguistics, law, philosophy, sociology, engineering, and trade & public health.
In eastern DRC and USAID’s Accelerated Learning Programs (ALPs) are extremely effective in providing education opportunities to out-of-school youth. ALPs compress the equivalent of the six-year primary program into three years, allowing students to re-enter the formal education system at the secondary level or qualify for vocational training.
Economy
This arrangement provided the blueprint for the Mobutu government’s steady acquisition of private economic concerns—heralded as the “Zairianization” of the economy. Mobutu appropriated the income from new state enterprises, using it to amass a huge personal fortune and to create a vast patronage network. In the 1970s and ’80s, he also portioned out control over state enterprises to shifting networks of associates whose loyalty he needed. He offered concessions to foreign private enterprises as well. Increasingly, the economy became an adjunct of Mobutu’s political machine.
At first, international agencies such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, as well as Mobutu’s allies in the West, turned a blind eye to his personal appropriation of the economy and the associated declines in productivity and exports. The fall in copper prices in the mid-1970s, however, led to audits of state enterprises that revealed high levels of embezzlement. Nonetheless, Mobutu remained an important Cold War ally for Western countries, and for the next 20 years international financial institutions and his Western allies continued to find ways to keep the sinking economy afloat. Yet as the economy became less and less productive, funds directed toward the maintenance of Mobutu’s national, regional, and local patronage networks were becoming insufficient. Both state managers and private owners of enterprises increasingly resorted to extortion and force to maintain their wealth.
In the early 1990s, with the collapse of the Soviet Union and heightened demands for democratic reform worldwide, Mobutu’s Western allies finally pressed for reforms in Congo. By this time, however, the country was in crisis. Between 1990 and 1995, the economy demonstrated a negative annual growth rate of –8.42 percent. In the early 1990s the value of the national currencysank to remarkable lows. Average per capita income, which continued to fall drastically, was more than halved between 1990 and 2000 to become one of the lowest in the world.
The DRC is still recovering from a series of conflicts that broke out in the 1990s creating a protracted economic and social slump. The Government has launched sectoral reforms to strengthen governance and transparency in the extractive industries (forestry, mining, and oil sectors) and to improve the business climate. Currently, almost all contracts signed by the Government are accessible to the public. The DRC participates in the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) and regularly publishes reports on revenues from natural resources. However, systematizing the procedures necessary for a competitive process in awarding mining, oil, and forestry contracts requires additional efforts on the part of the Government.
After sharply increasing to almost 9% in the 2013-2014 period, the GDP growth rate of the country, decelerated to 6.9% in 2015, then to 2.4% in 2016, its lowest point since 2001. This slump is mainly due to declining prices and a shrinking global demand for raw materials exported by the country, particularly of copper and cobalt, which account for 80% of its export revenue.

$66.15 billion (2016 est.)
$64.6 billion (2015 est.)
2.4% (2016 est.)
6.9% (2015 est.)
$800 (2016 est.)
$800 (2015 est.)
8.4% of GDP (2016 est.)
16.3% of GDP (2015 est.)
industry: 33%
services: 45.9% (2017 est.)
Agriculture
DRC is one of the largest countries in the world: this central African state is roughly the size of Western Europe but only one per cent of land is under cultivation. The country hosts half of all of Africa’s forests and has significant deposits of gold and the highly-prized mineral coltan. Most of the country’s natural resources and people are found in the southern grasslands, while the northern and central regions are largely forested. Farming is predominantly low-input and subsistence-based, with little commercial activity, particularly in the wake of the civil war. About 70 per cent of the population live in rural areas, and around 40 million people depend on farming for their livelihoods. Despite this, agriculture contributed some 45 per cent to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2006 – down over ten per cent on 1997. Important food crops are plantain, maize, cassava, groundnut and rice. Cash crops, usually grown on plantations by smallholders, include coffee, cocoa, sugar, tea, cotton and rubber. Palm oil products and quinquina (a bitter, alcoholic drink containing quinine) are also produced for domestic and export markets.
The livestock sector is largely undeveloped, with small numbers of cattle, pigs, goats and chickens. Livestock populations have suffered significantly since the civil war, when many farms were looted and the animals stolen. With the Congo River and its many major tributaries, and four of the continent’s Great Lakes on its eastern border, DRC’s fisheries sector holds great potential. But the fledgling industry also suffered during the war, when many fish farmers abandoned their ponds. The country’s seaport at Banama in the southwest has potential to be developed for commercial sea fishing.
Despite being an agricultural exporter prior to independence in 1960, farming in DRC has been through long periods of stagnation and decline. Currently, the sector is growing at two per cent per year, but this is slower than the increase in population. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), has blamed the government’s lack of support for agriculture for continuing food insecurity in the country.
Many farmers have struggled to gain access to credit and there has been a prolonged lack of both public and private investment in agriculture, as well as in the country’s energy and transport infrastructure. Many roads in both rural and urban areas have fallen into disrepair and energy provision in the countryside is extremely limited, while the lucrative mining industry has drawn agricultural labour away from the fields and into the mines. These factors, combined with the destabilising effects of war, have also contributed to widespread hunger. Recent global food price rises have hit the import-dependent DRC hard.
Despite a wealth of underexploited forests, fisheries and farmland, it is likely that conflict, inadequate government support for farming and ongoing instability will ensure that this potential remains untapped. Without security and stability, foreign investment will continue to be hampered and infrastructure projects will not see the light of day. DRC has greater potential than many of its African neighbours to lift its population out of extreme poverty, but its agriculture sector needs wholesale reform, with the support of the government and the private sector. Before any of this can be achieved, however, the country must first find peace.
Manufacturing
Manufacturing accounts for a small proportion of the Congolese GDP. The sector has been hampered by a variety of factors, including difficulty obtaining machinery and spare parts and an unreliable electricity supply. Manufacturing industries can be classified into two main categories. Consumption industries produce processed foods, beverages, cigarettes, cloth, printed material, hosiery, shoes and leather, metallic fabrics, and such chemical products as soap, paints, rubber, and plastics. Supply and equipment industries include spinning and weaving plants, chemical factories, and facilities to produce machinery, transport materials, nonmetallic minerals, and wood products. A petroleum refinery, opened in 1968, operates near Moanda.
The heaviest concentration of hydroelectric consumption is in the mining areas and in Kinshasa. A hydroelectric dam was completed in 1972 on the lower Congo River at Inga Falls. After completion of the second stage of the dam in 1982, its hydroelectric capacity had grown almost eightfold, with its potential estimated at nearly 15 times that total. In spite of the dam’s massive potential, however, the poor condition of necessary equipment has made electric shortages commonplace, and much of the population is without reliable access to electricity. The majority of Congolese depend on firewood as a source of domestic fuel. Neighbouring Republic of the Congo has been linked to the country’s power grid since the 1950s.
Banking and Finance
The Central Bank of the Congo is responsible for developing and maintaining the Congolese franc, which serves as the primary form of currency in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In 2007, The World Bank decided to grant the Democratic Republic of Congo up to $1.3 billion in assistance funds over the following three years.[115] Kinshasa is currently negotiating membership in the Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa(OHADA).
The Democratic Republic of Congo is widely considered one of the world’s richest countries in natural resources; its untapped deposits of raw minerals are estimated to be worth in excess of US$24 trillion. The Congo has 70% of the world’s coltan, a third of its cobalt, more than 30% of its diamond reserves, and a tenth of its copper.
Despite such vast mineral wealth, the economy of the Democratic Republic of the Congo has declined drastically since the mid-1980s. The African country generated up to 70% of its export revenue from minerals in the 1970s and 1980s, and was particularly hit when resource prices deteriorated at that time. By 2005, 90% of the DRC’s revenues derived from its minerals. The country’s woes mean that despite its potential its citizens are among the poorest people on Earth. DR Congo consistently has the lowest, or nearly the lowest, nominal GDP per capita in the world. The DRC is also one of the twenty lowest-ranked countries on the Corruption Perception Index.
The national central bank, the Bank of Congo, is located in Kinshasa, as are numerous commercial, savings, and development banks. There are also mortgage and credit banking institutions. Totally foreign-owned banks include U.S., British, and French institutions as well as the International Bank for Africa in Congo. The penetration of the banking system in Congo is extremely low, however, and only a fraction of Congolese citizens maintain bank accounts; the majority of transactions within the dominant informal sector are settled in cash. In 1998 the Congolese franc replaced the new zaire as the country’s official currency, but the new tender was seriously devalued by the country’s years of civil conflict. New notes were introduced in 2003.
Mining
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is the world’s largest producer of cobalt ore, and a major producer of copper and diamonds. The latter come from Kasai province in the west. By far the largest mines in the DRC are located in southern Katanga province (formerly Shaba), and are highly mechanized, with a capacity of several million tons per year of copper and cobalt ore, and refining capability for metal ore. The DRC is the second-largest diamond-producing nation in the world,and artisanal and small-scale miners account for most of its production.
At independence in 1960, DRC was the second-most industrialized country in Africa after South Africa; it boasted a thriving mining sector and a relatively productive agriculture sector. The First and Second Congo Wars began in 1996. These conflicts have dramatically reduced national output and government revenue, increased external debt, and resulted in deaths of more than five million people from war and associated famine and disease. Malnutrition affects approximately two thirds of the country’s population.
Following the peace accord in 2003, the focus returned to mining. Rebel groups supplied international corporations through unregulated mining by soldiers, locals organized by military commanders and by foreign nationals. The political framework was unstable. In 2009 the DRC signed a loan contract with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for $12 billion of debt relief in 2010. The loan included trade conditions, such as liberalization of the diamond trade.[citation needed] At the end of 2012 the IMF suspended the last payments, because of a lack of transparency in the DRC’s process for awarding mining contracts. The mining sector has since expanded, but commodity prices have declined and this has hampered the DRC’s progress.
Much mining has been done in small artisanal mining operations, sometimes known as Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining (ASM). These small-scale mines are unregulated, with high levels of child labor and workplace injury. They can occur within protected areas, and around endangered or threatened species. As of 2008 many ASM operations existed for minerals such as coltan. ASM operations employ a significant portion of the DRC’s population; estimates range up to one fifth of the population, or 12.5 million people. Problems stemming from artisanal mining include disruption of families, mining-related illnesses, environmental damage, child labor, prostitution and rape.
Since the country’s main economic resource is its mineral deposits; mining produces almost nine-tenths of total exports. The abundance of minerals in Katanga province was among those factors that attracted European powers to Congo in the 19th century. Minerals found in Katanga include copper, cobalt, zinc, cassiterite (the chief source of metallic tin), manganese, coal, silver, cadmium, germanium (a brittle element used as aemiconductor), gold, palladium (a metallic element used as a catalyst and in alloys), uranium, and platinum. The region west of Lake Kivu contains cassiterite, columbotantalite, wolframite (a source of tungsten), beryl, gold, and monazite (a phosphate of the cerium metals and thorium).
Lake Kivu also harbours vast reserves of methane, carbonic, and nitrogen natural gases. There are deposits of iron ore and gem-quality diamonds in south-central Congo, while the central regions are rich in industrial diamonds. In the northeast there are gold, coal, and iron-ore deposits; there are prospective deposits of gold, monazite, and diamonds in the northwestern regions as well. Coastal Congo contains bauxite, gold, and offshore deposits of petroleum. The limestone deposits that occur throughout the country are considered to be among the richest in Africa.
Congo’s forest reserves cover more than half of the country and are among the largest in Africa. Wild game supplements the local diet and is an important item in local commerce. Rivers, lakes, swamps, and ocean contain vast reserves of fish. It is estimated that the country’s hydroelectric resources make up about one-eighth of global capacity and perhaps half of Africa’s potential capacity. This tremendous potential comes from the many rapids along the rivers of the Congo system. Thermal energy can be derived from the forests and coal and petroleum deposits.