Democratic Republic of the Congo

The DRC faces major economic and social challenges. To help improve living conditions, AFD works to increase access to essential services, with a focus on:

• Strengthening health systems to ensure equitable access to quality healthcare and prevent epidemics. This priority is set out in a Franco-Congolese roadmap signed in 2019. It has resulted in 11 projects with a total of €80 million in commitments.

• Developing public services in urban areas (water and sanitation, transport, electricity), based on a horizontal approach to building sustainable and climate-resilient cities. The city of Kinshasa is a focus of this activity, as well as secondary cities in an effort to decentralize away from the capital city.

The DRC’s rapidly growing population is characterized by its youth, with nearly 70% of the population aged under 25. This dynamic is an asset for the country’s development. But it also poses a tremendous challenge in terms of better integrating them into the labor market, and meeting the needs of a growing population increasingly drawn towards cities.

AFD assists the DRC with its demographic transition by working on:

• Providing access to quality basic education, through its support to the sector reform, including the measures to introduce free education
• Developing job-creating vocational training and higher education courses, especially through the National Institute for Vocational Development (INPP) 
• Supporting agri-food supply chains, with the aim of improving food security and creating jobs, as ⦁    agriculture is the largest provider of ⦁    jobs in the DRC

The DRC’s rapidly growing population is characterized by its youth, with nearly 70% of the population aged under 25. This dynamic is an asset for the country’s development. But it also poses a tremendous challenge in terms of better integrating them into the labor market, and meeting the needs of a growing population increasingly drawn towards cities.

AFD assists the DRC with its demographic transition by working on:

• Providing access to quality basic education, through its support to the sector reform, including the measures to introduce free education
• Developing job-creating vocational training and higher education courses, especially through the National Institute for Vocational Development (INPP) 
• Supporting agri-food supply chains, with the aim of improving food security and creating jobs, as ⦁    agriculture is the largest provider of ⦁    jobs in the DRC.

The DRC is home to the second largest tropical forested area in the world. These resources must be protected.

AFD takes action to address this challenge, the consequences of which are already visible well beyond the country’s borders. It supports the Government’s objectives of:

• Developing natural resources based on sustainable management models, in close partnership with the Central African Forest Initiative (CAFI) 
• Protecting biodiversity and increasing the resilience of territories, by combining support for conservation with the protection of the living world, and involving local communities  
• Promoting inclusive territorial development, taking into account the vulnerabilities of the living world of humans, animals and plants, as well as the interactions between them.

Gender inequality is very prevalent in the DRC. Girls and women are also highly exposed to gender-based violence.

In addition, the youth of the DRC’s population makes the political, social and economic integration of young people a major driver for the country’s development.

In this context, AFD Group will focus on:

• Removing the barriers to women’s empowerment, through an approach promoting social cohesion in all AFD’s sectors of operation (such as health, education and financial services). It will specifically focus on sexual and reproductive health and the prevention of gender-based violence
• Strengthening the social and economic integration of young people, through the ⦁    Choose Africa initiative which supports the development of entrepreneurship
• Supporting women entrepreneurs through dedicated expertise and financing.

AFD Group’s activities to strengthen governance and institutions aim to improve the quality and effectiveness of public action. This involves:

• Supporting the financial governance reforms to improve the mobilization of domestic revenues and the interconnection between financial administrations
• Supporting two training schools for public officials and judicial officials, the National School of Administration (ENA) and the National Institute of Judicial Training (INAFORJ)
• Helping to structure the private ecosystem and thereby develop a framework conducive to investments  
• €360 million committed between 2012 and 2022    
• 80% of commitments since 2020 have contributed to the promotion of gender equality 
• €60 million of projects currently implemented by Expertise France in the sectors of health, entrepreneurship and security.