Country profilesRepublic of the Congo

Humanitarian profile

The Republic of Congo has slowly recovered from crippling civil wars in the 1990s.  Much of the capital Brazzaville was destroyed in 1997. Stability returned over the next six years but politics is marked by the dominance of one party and frequent opposition boycotts. Oil dominates the national economy but makes little difference to ordinary Congolese who live off subsistence agriculture. Corruption is rife.

Country snapshot

The Republic of Congo is also known as Congo-Brazzaville to distinguish it from its much larger neighbour, the Democratic Republic of Congo (also known as Congo-Kinshasa, formerly Zaire). Civil wars crippled the country in the 1990s but it has slowly recovered since then. It has some oil wealth. President Denis Sassou-Nguesso ruled a Marxist one-party state throughout the 1980s, lost power when democracy was restored but has been back in office since winning the civil war. Much of Congo is barely inhabited tropical jungle, with most of its four million people living in the southwest - in the capital Brazzaville, around the main port of Pointe Noire, or along the 500-km railway that links them.

Government

Under the 2002 constitution the president serves for a maximum of two consecutive seven-year terms and is head of both the state and the government. In 2009 the position of prime minister was abolished. Denis Sassou-Nguesso became president in 1997 after a short but bloody civil war in which he toppled President Pascal Lissouba with the help of Angolan troops. He had already served as president from 1979, when he was installed by the military, until losing the country's first multi-party elections in 1992. He won the 2002 presidential election after the main opposition candidate was excluded and won again in 2009 amid an opposition boycott.

Parliament has two houses, whose members serve for five years. The Senate has 72 seats and the National Assembly 137.

Economy

Oil dominates the national economy but makes little difference to the lives of ordinary Congolese. Most people live off subsistence agriculture, growing manioc, sugar, rice, corn and peanuts. Income disparity is great.

The oil sector, the state’s main revenue earner, revolves around French company Total and Italian company ENI. Dependence on oil means Congo is at the mercy of fluctuating world prices. Before oil revenues started to take off in the 1980s, fuelling growth of more than 5 percent a year - one of Africa’s highest rates - forestry was the biggest foreign-exchange earner. It is now dwarfed by the  export earnings that petroleum provides. The government overspent on the back of the oil boom on large-scale development projects and was saddled with debt.

It has made progress on tackling corruption, reforming the economy and working with international financial institutions.

In 2007 the London Club of private creditors cancelled four-fifths of Congo's debt. And in 2010 the Paris Club of sovereign creditors and Brazil agreed to write off all of the country’s remaining debt in a deal worth around $2.4 billion.

The government plays a major - and critics say inefficient - role in the economy. For many years the state bureaucracy was the biggest employer.

The ocean port of Pointe-Noire is an important transit route for large parts of west-central Africa.

History

First inhabited by Pygmies, Congo was later settled by Bantu tribes which also live in many neighbouring states. The Kongo and other Bantu kingdoms built trade links leading into the vast Congo River basin and the first European contacts came in the late 15th century – with the slave trade following soon.

The French took over in the 1880s, competing, under empire builder Pierre Savorgnon de Brazza, with Belgian King Leopold for control of the Congo basin. Like large swathes of French-held Africa, Congo won independence in 1960 and for the next quarter century espoused Marxism with Soviet support. It became a one-party Marxist People's Republic in 1970.

Ethnic tensions and military involvement in politics, in the form of coups or background influence, have played a role since the new republic was founded – as, more recently, has the lure of the country's offshore oil wealth.

As a wave of democracy swept the continent after the Cold War ended, Congo under formerly Marxist Sassou-Nguesso turned to multiparty democracy in 1992, but he lost and unrest soon followed. This was at its worst during a brief civil war in 1997 between factions supporting President Pascal Lissouba and Sassou-Nguesso. Much of the capital, across the Congo River from Kinshasa, was destroyed.

Sassou-Nguesso was returned to power but ethnic and political unrest lingered on until 2003 when southern-based rebels - who go by the name of the “Ninjas” - agreed to a peace accord.

International Monetary Fund debt relief to the country was delayed in 2006 following allegations of corruption. After cooler ties during the Cold War, France is now again Congo's dominant international partner.

Legal snapshot

The legal system is based on French civil law and customary law. Congo has not accepted compulsory International Court of Justice jurisdiction. It does not recognise the authority of the International Criminal Court.

After a complaint by Transparency International France, a French judge said in 2009 that he would probe whether Sassou-Nguesso and Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang Nguema robbed their states’ coffers to buy luxury homes and cars in France.