DR Congo earmarks $62.8m for national dialogue
By the AFREEQUE newsroom, based on Actualité.cd
The Democratic Republic of the Congo’s $24.8 billion 2027 draft budget provides $62.8 million to organise a national dialogue. The three-month process is to be preceded by consultations in all 26 provinces before a gathering in Kinshasa, Prime Minister Judith Suminwa says.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo plans to allocate 142 billion Congolese francs, or about $62.8 million, to fund the national dialogue on peace, national cohesion and state reform. The amount is included in the 2027 finance bill presented on Thursday 29 October by Prime Minister Judith Suminwa to the National Assembly, according to the text read during a plenary session.
The process will last a maximum of three months. It must be preceded by consultations in the 26 provinces, where forums will examine insecurity, land and customary conflicts, community tensions, inequalities and necessary reforms. The provincial contributions will be combined in a summary for the assembly planned in Kinshasa.
President Félix Tshisekedi announced this sequence of consultations in August and excluded from the dialogue actors who continued to fight by armed means. In September, he established a committee tasked with preparing the creation of the organising commission. A subsequent ordinance will formally convene the dialogue and set out its representation and monitoring mechanisms.
This allocation is included in the DR Congo 2027 budget, presented on 29 October at $24.8 billion. The bill also forecasts inflation of 6.4% in 2027, according to data presented to the National Assembly.
