DFID | Country Profiles | Africa | Democratic Republic of Congo

Growth: facts and figures
Average GDP growth rate 2002 - 2006	5.5%
GDP per capita (2004)	£70
Major exports	Diamonds, oil, cobalt, copper
DFID support in 2007: to improve roads natural resources management	£2.2m £0.4m

Decades of economic mismanagement, followed by conflict, left DRC’s economy in ruins. GDP per capita has dropped from £190 in 1960 to £70 in 2004 (GDP per capita in the UK is around £19,000) . Since emerging from its years of war the DRC has managed to maintain a stable economy and achieve healthy GDP growth of 5.5% per year. The DRC has immense potential for further growth but sustaining and accelerating this growth will require key constraints, such as the roads infrastructure, to be tackled. DRC must also ensure that growth benefits the poor and the country as a whole and that government revenues are managed transparently. Prior to conflict, the economy was dominated by extractive and export activities, such as mining, agriculture, forestry and energy, fuelling a system of poor governance and large-scale corruption. DFID is therefore focusing its support in two areas: strengthening the roads infrastructure and helping improve the way that DRC’s mineral resources and forests are governed to ensure that they are sustainably managed and benefit the poor. We will also establish a small programme to improve public financial management.

Rehabilitating roads and establishing a sustainable maintenance mechanism

Transport infrastructure has been identified as a major constraint to DRC’s economic development. Many years of neglect, mismanagement and civil war have meant that 95% of the DRC’s road network is now impassable, even during the dry season. As a result access to markets and services, such as schools or clinics, is severely limited for most of the rural population.

DFID is providing funding to bring key roads in DRC back up to a useable standard. Given how quickly the forest can reclaim roads and that the tropical climate can render them unusable in less than a year, we are also ensuring that the roads will be properly maintained for the long term. Our road rehabilitation programmes have already opened up over 800km of rural roads. Journey times have been reduced from days to hours and economic activity along the newly opened roads is taking off. Near the town of Kabinda in south-central DRC, one of the areas where we have funded the reopening of various roads, villagers have seen a real improvement. In a recent visit, women from the village talked about the reduced price of maize and availability of other items, such as clothes, and the price of a bar of soap has dropped by a quarter.

DFID is working with the World Bank to develop a five year national programme of rehabilitation and maintenance of priority roads across the country. Our support will reopen 1800km of roads, once again linking the main economic centres of the country. Combined with a Congolese Government funded national road fund, it will ensure that these roads, once rebuilt, will stay open.

DRC map showing roads to be opened with DFID support, labelled "DFID" and "Pro-Routes".

Ensuring the exploitation of natural resources benefits the population

DRC is richly endowed in natural resources: fertile land, hydropower, the second largest tropical rainforest in the world, and Africa’s largest deposits of copper, coltan and cobalt as well as significant deposits of diamonds, gold and other minerals. The challenge is to ensure that the exploitation of these resources is equitable, transparent and environmentally sustainable while benefiting ordinary Congolese.

Forestry

DRC’s tropical forests need to be managed sustainably, balancing protection of the forests and the rights and livelihoods of the millions of Congolese who depend on them, whilst ensuring that they can generate revenues and contribute to growth in a sustainable way.

Through a roundtable process DFID has brought together the World Bank, NGOs, the government of DRC, civil society and the private sector to identify economic alternatives to industrial-scale logging. DFID is also contributing £250,000 to a joint fund managed by the World Bank to support the DRC Ministry of Environment to improve the way forests are managed. The UK is providing £50 million for the regional Congo Basin forests which will include protecting the DRC’s forests and the livelihoods of those who depend on them.

Community in Alibuku discuss the maps they have produced of their area

Through the Rainforest Foundation UK, DFID supports a community mapping project in eastern DRC.

This project, implemented by the NGO OCEAN, provides forest communities – including pygmy communities – with the know-how and technology to produce accurate geo-referenced maps of their villages and land and forest use. These maps provide a tool for the communities to negotiate with government, logging companies and other groups who may be interested in using the community’s forest. We hope that this might provide a model for mapping community forest and land use across DRC.

Map of community in Bandundu province, showing the overlap between a logging concession and community land use – in this case logging by the timber company was outside its concession boundaries. (Image courtesy of Cath Long/Rainforest Foundation)

copper mine in Katanga province south-eastern DRC

The revenue generated from minerals must be transparently managed, not siphoned off by powerful interest groups, and the DRC government needs to have the capacity to properly regulate the mining industry. However, mining in DRC is not just undertaken by large companies. It is often overlooked that 80% of Congolese minerals are dug out of the ground by over 2 million vulnerable, impoverished and largely illegal artisanal miners or “creuseurs”, who scrape a living mining gold, diamonds, copper and other minerals. Improving opportunities and living standards for these Congolese is also crucial to DRC’s future.

DFID is supporting the implementation of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) in DRC. This will make public the income that the Government receives from mining companies and so allow the population to hold government and business leaders to account over public expenditure. In Katanga province in south-eastern DRC we are working to develop a public-private partnership involving the provincial Katangan government and selected mining companies. We plan to work together to build the capacity of the provincial government to manage revenue and regulate the mining industry. The partnership also aims to encourage responsible business behaviour in the broader mining sector. DFID will work with the World Bank to improve the conditions of artisanal miners.

Democratic Republic of Congo

Growth: promoting growth that benefits the poor

Rehabilitating roads and establishing a sustainable maintenance mechanism

Ensuring the exploitation of natural resources benefits the population

Forestry