The Democratic Republic of the Congo is the largest and most populous country of Central Africa. Even though it has very diverse natural resources, the Congo is among the poorest countries in the world. Social differences are blatant.
Bilateral cooperation between Belgium and the Democratic Republic of the Congo was resumed in 2000, after 9 years of interruption. Ever since, cooperation activities have increased in different sectors: Infrastructure, health, institutional support and good governance, community development, and education.
With an annual budget of about EUR 65 million, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the first partner of Belgian cooperation.
From 2010 onwards, the geographical action zones will be limited to achieve greater effectiveness of projects. Moreover, the cooperation programme will focus on three key sectors:
- Agriculture,
- Rural development,
- Technical and professional education.
About 80% of Congolese live in a rural environment. Agriculture is the main economic sector and contributes 56% to GDP. Belgium supports the agricultural development. It intervenes at two levels in particular: On the one hand, it contributes to making high-quality agricultural seeds available, and, on the other hand, it participates in opening up production zones by rehabilitating rural roads and river ferries. This way, the transportation of produce to centres of consumption is made easier and production, trade as well as small-scale rural industry are encouraged.
Cooperation also supports the professional training of young people. Indeed, the reconstruction and sustainable development of the country rely on the availability of skilled labour and technicians.
In order to reach these development objectives, Belgian cooperation, along with other donors such as the European Union and the World Bank, participates in multilateral programmes in the health, education and governance sectors.
Development agencies that look for performing service providers can also rely on Belgian expertise to execute their projects. This way, several projects are being executed on the account of British cooperation and the French development agency, namely in the fields of rural roads (district of Kabinda) and drinking water supply (in the Kinshasa and Mbujimayi periphery).
Case studies
Smoke fish well to increase revenue | Congo
On Lake Kibakabaka, near the Zambian border, fishermen still use rudimentary techniques to process fish. These techniques conserve fish only for a very short time, one month at most. Charred, the fish break up in small bits during transport to the markets. Consequently, sales at Kibakabaka are extremely low and do not provide fishermen with the necessary income to sustain their households.
Education in Congo: Handbooks for pupils and teachers
In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), education is doing poorly due to the many problems schools have to deal with. Often teaching staff is not competent enough because of a lack of pedagogical tools and continued training. Pupils have to share the few books available… In primary school, sometimes pupils have never held a book in their hands.
The Congolese forest, governance and timber trade: FLEGT!
The countries of the European Union remain one of the main markets for tropical timber. In 2007, for example, 80% of timber officially exported by the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was for the European market. But European public opinion is concerned about the impact of its tropical timber consumption in the producer countries.
Support project for the fight against trypanosomiasis
Thousands of farmers, fishermen, women and children in Congo are stung by the feared tsetse fly and thus fall victim to the terrible sleeping sickness. Because its symptoms and impact are similar to those of the AIDS pandemic – it is also known as 'rural AIDS'.
Sanitation Kinshasa
Those who know Kinshasa know that the city that used to be called “Kin la belle” has reached such a dire state that it deserves the nickname of “Kin the dump”. Nevertheless, it is impressive to see how public services have recently tried to clean this city and give it back certain decency.
