Today we travel to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), not to be confused with the neighbouring country of Republic of the Congo.
It’s the second largest country in sub-Saharan Africa and the second largest country in Africa after Algeria. The DRC is said to be the most resource rich, yet economically untapped countries in the world.
The DRC’s geography is a sprawling mass of untouched rainforest, wetlands and towering volcanoes. The most notable of these habitats is the Congo rainforest, the world’s second biggest rainforest after the Amazon. It’s home to 10,000 species of tropical plants and many endangered mammals such as multiple species of gorillas, bonobos, chimpanzees, and forest elephants.
Previously the DRC was a Belgian colony. Belgium plundered the DRC for rubber and Ivory killing nearly half of the population in the process. The DRC eventually gained independence in 1960 before becoming a dictatorship and being renamed Zaire in 1971. What followed was a catastrophic cascade of conflicts beginning with the Congo Crisis, Shaba Invasions, First Congo War and finally the Second Congo War. Since then there has been a fragile peace with sporadic upsurges in violence and human rights abuses continuing.
Today the DRC remains a poor, undeveloped country. Despite having a vast wealth of natural resources, it has undoubtedly succumbed to the phenomenon known as “resource curse”. Most of the DRCs exports are unprocessed conflict minerals such as gold, diamonds, copper cobalt and coltan. Coltan is a nondescript black rock essential to the production of almost all electronics. The DRC has 80% of the world’s supply. Exporting these raw materials is challenging as only 2% of the DRC’s roads are paved. The majority of transport is by waterway. Luckily 60% of the country is navigable by water.
To get a better understanding of the situation in the DRC and the inadvertent effects of the tech-boom, I really recommend watching this VICE documentary about conflict minerals, rebels and child soldiers in Congo. It may be a decade old now, but it’s a fascinating watch and the the situation in the DRC remains largely unchanged from what I can tell.
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