The Democratic
Republic of Congo is Africa's largest country, after Sudan and Algeria, with an area
covering over 2,345 thousand square
kilometers. Its population of over 49 million people
is the fourth largest in the continent after those of Nigeria, Egypt and Ethiopia. A
former Belgian colony, the Democratic Republic of Congo gained its independence on June
1960, and it used to be known as Congo Kinshasa from 1960 to 1970 and as Zaire from
1971 to 1997.
Confined in the Congo
Basin, the Democratic Republic of Congo is endowed with natural and mineral resources, and
it might well be the most prosperous country in Africa. It has the potential to grow all
the major tropical agricultural commodities and to feed its large population and export
its surplus products. The Congo river hydroelectric potential is estimated at equivalent
to 13% of the world's hydroelectric potential. It has some of the extensive primary rain
forests in the world after those of Brazil. However, bad governance, ethnic conflicts, and
inability to exert control over a vast area have eroded the country capacity to exploit
its huge resources.
Independence in 1960
was followed by chaos and attempts of secession in Katanga, Shaba, the largest producer of
cobalt and copper and the institution of a military dictatorship in 1970. The economic and
political crisis by the early 1997 characterised by public unrest, demands for democracy,
and military campaign against the military regime by the Alliance des forces
démocratiques pour la libération du Congo (AFDL) forced the capitulation of the
government in 1997, and the institution of a new government led by AFDL. A year later, the
new government is faced with the difficulty of exerting control over the entire country
following resurgence of conflicts within and across border.
The telecommunications
system in the Democratic Republic of Congo is the least developed in the region with a
telephone network capacity of 51,978. In 1999, the number of telephone lines was
approximately 20,000, resulting in a telephone density of 0.04 per hundred
people.
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