Democratic Republic of Congo Unsubstantiated claims distract from the real issues facing DRC agriculture Perhaps it is the size of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) or its strife-torn history that fires the imagination, but people seem to believe any statistical claim made about the central African country. Take for example the assertion, in former US vice-president Al Gore’s latest bestseller, “The Future”, that 48% of the DRC’s cultivable land has been sold to foreign investors. The claim was repeated as recently as July in the pages of Le Potentiel, a DRC newspaper. Yet there is no evidence to support…
Nicolas Long
Vast mineral wealth has fuelled the on-going conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Its forests and mountains are home to minerals such as tin, tungsten, tantalum and gold which are used in cellphones, computers, medical devices and automotive parts. Rogue militias have hijacked chunks of this mineral trade and used the profits to fund their activities. To stop the funding of these armed groups the United States (US) Congress passed legislation. Nicholas Long looks at why this law may have caused more harm than good. In the past ten years many reports have blamed mineral wealth and its…
