Logo Unvailing of the City Pairing Brazzaville and Kinshasa, African Capital of Culture for the Years 2024-2025 

From January 22 to 26, 2024, at the invitation of the Mayor of Brazzaville, the Secretary General of UCLG Africa, Mr. Jean Pierre Elong Mbassi, attended the celebration of the World Day of African and Afro-descendant Culture (JMCA) in Brazzaville. The official JMCA opening ceremony was presided over by H.E. Mrs. Marie Hélène Pongault, Minister of Cultural Industry, Tourism, Arts and Leisure, and H.E. Mrs. Catherine Kathungu Furaha, Minister of Culture, Arts and Heritage of the DRC, who both gave speeches at the event. Also speaking at the opening ceremony were the Mayor of Brazzaville, Honorable Dieudonne Bantsimba, and the Secretary General of UCLG Africa. The opening ceremony was followed by the unveiling and presentation of the logo of the city pairing of Brazzaville and Kinshasa, African Capital of Culture for the years 2024-2025. A theatrical interlude was then presented to participants by the troupe “Le Théâtre de Trois Francs”. Participants then attended two presentations on: 

– “The track of caravans in Brazzaville: history and places of memory” by Mr. Joseph Zidi, Senior Lecturer in Contemporary History, Marien Ngouabi University, Brazzaville   

– “The contribution of the African diasporas of America to the political, cultural, scientific and technological modernity of humanity (from the 19th to the 21st century)” by Professor Goma-Thethet, Chair of Contemporary African and Congolese History. 

The ceremony ended with a visit to the sites marking the track of caravans in Brazzaville. Prior to the JMCA celebration ceremony, the Secretary General held a working meeting with the Mayor of Brazzaville, in the presence of the Provincial Minister for International Cooperation of the Kinshasa Province, DRC. During this meeting, it was confirmed that the two Ministers of Culture, who will co-preside over the official JMCA ceremony, had given their agreement for the preparation of the program for the celebration of the African Capital of Culture in the two cities of Brazzaville and Kinshasa to begin immediately. Finally, it was agreed that a mission from the two cities of Brazzaville and Kinshasa should be organized to Rabat, the first African Capital of Culture for the years 2022-2023, to pass the mantle to the cities of Brazzaville and Kinshasa, jointly designated African Capital of Culture for the years 2024-2025. 

On the sidelines of the JMCA celebration ceremony, the Secretary General of UCLG Africa, Mr. Jean Pierre Elong Mbassi, held talks on January 25, 2024, with the Minister Delegate to the Ministry of the Interior in charge of Decentralization and Local Authorities, His Excellency Mr. Juste Désiré Mondelé, and with the Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, His Excellency Mr. Paul Valentin Ngobo, in the presence of Mrs. Atlas Naoual, the Honorary Consul of Congo in the Casablanca Region of Morocco. After an overview of the follow-up to the 2023 Forum on the relaunch of the decentralization process in Congo, the Minister expressed several requests for UCLG Africa’s support: 

  1. The need for capacity-building support for local authority staff, involving the creation of a training table for local authority executives.  
  2. Technical assistance to Congo’s local authorities in preparing applications to the African Support Fund for International Decentralized Cooperation (FACDI) set up by the Kingdom of Morocco.
  3. The possibility for UCLG Africa to contribute to access to climate finance for local authorities in the Congo.  
  4. Support for the preparation and organization of a Local Governments Careers Fair as part of the African Day of Decentralization and Local Development, scheduled for August 10, 2024.  

The meeting with the Minister of Agriculture focused on the launch of the African Network of Local Products that UCLG Africa has been promoting since 2021 in conjunction with the Moroccan local authorities. The Secretary General informed the Minister in March 2023, in Brazzaville, about the setting up of the national chapter of the African Network of Local Produce. 

In particular, he mentioned the three main services provided by this Network:   

1) identifying and listing local products with a view to their labelling and protection;   

2) identifying and listing biodiversity resources likely to be valorized on the basis of the provisions of the Nagoya Protocol on the sharing of added value resulting from the exploitation of natural resources of the borrowing territory;   

3) the marketing of local products through the creation of an e-commerce platform.   

The Secretary General informed the Minister of his department’s request for political support for the Network, and of the need for his commitment to identifying and listing local products and organizing their development and marketing. The Minister expressed his interest in the identification and protection of local products, and would be interested in any support UCLG Africa could provide in this regard. He also confirmed his department’s support for the African Network of Local Products.