CONGO (DEMOCRATIC REP OF)

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is the largest country in Sub-Saharan Africa and is home to the world’s second-largest rainforest after the Amazon. The country is endowed with abundant natural resources  including minerals such as cobalt and copper, hydropower potential, significant arable land and vaste biodiversity. The Congolese economy is dominated by agriculture and industry (mainly copper and cobalt mining) while the services sector remains under-developed.

Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, economic growth was already projected to decelerate in 2020, reflecting declining mining activity with the suspension of production at a large copper and cobalt mine (Mutanda mining) and the shutdown of Boss mining. In 2020, GDP shrank by -2.2% because of poor export performance and contracting domestic demand amid the sanitary crisis. We expect GDP to rebound by +3% in 2021, driven by the extractive sectors that are supported by robust Chinese demand.

The DRC could be qualified as a “fragile” state that has experienced recurrent health and humanitarian crises and violent conflicts that hamper economic activity. The 11th Ebola epidemic in the country was officially declared over on 18 November 2020, with 119 confirmed cases and 55 deaths. Unfortunately, in February 2021, a resurgence of the Ebola virus was reported in the province of North Kivu, where a previous Ebola epidemic had been declared over in June 2020. As of 30 March 2021, a total of 12 Ebola cases had been confirmed in four provinces (Biena, Butembo, Katwa and Musienene).

The country is still suffering from endemic corruption and clientelism, despite recent initiatives to strengthen governance in the management of natural resources. The poor business climate continues to discourage foreign investment, the DRC being ranked 183 out of 190 countries in the 2020 Doing Business report.  

In 2018, Félix Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo, the son of the country’s longstanding opposition leader, won the presidential election. On this occasion, the DRC experienced the first peaceful transition of power in history after Joseph Kabila led the country for 18 years. However, the political situation remains fragile in 2021 due to the absence of a government in the near term  adding up to long-term difficulties of governing with a broad coalition.

The DRC has the third-largest population of the poor globally and fragile populations continue to fall into extreme poverty since the onset of the Covid-19 crisis in 2020. The World Bank estimates that in 2018, 73% of the Congolese population (60 million people) lived on less than USD1.90 a day (the international poverty line). As such, nearly 15% of people living in extreme poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa live in the DRC, Despite slight improvements since 2018, the DRC ranks 175 out of 189 countries on the 2020 Human Development Index and 43% of children in the country would suffer from malnourishment. - April 2021.