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Global governance and local government in the Congo: the role of the IMF, World Bank, the multinationals and the political elites

Kinshasa University, Department of Administrative and Political Sciences, Political Studies Center (CEP), Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo

This article follows in the wake of the territorial dynamic of globalization. It highlights the interactions between local government and an asymmetric global competitiveness in a country where the wealth of mining and forestry resources are under the control of the neo-liberal players of globalization (multinational companies, IMF, World Bank) and the Congolese political and military elites, thanks in particular to the privatization of land and the natural resources of the entities decentralized by the new mining, forestry and investment codes. Having become a real means of generating artificial revenues for the aforementioned players, these new pieces of legislation dispossess the Congolese local governments upstream, not only financially but also economically and materially and thus undermine their development capacity.

Points for practitioners

In the light of the data produced and analysed in this study, the government practitioners should be aware of the fact that global competitiveness as it has emerged today has severe effects on the natural resources and the economies of the local governments of developing countries, and those of the DRC in particular. This competitiveness, favoured by new mining and forestry codes, profits the foreign multinational companies that are better endowed in terms of capital and cutting-edge technological equipment. Furthermore, these pieces of legislation have become a source of profiteering for the Congo's political elites. Repealing all this imposed legislation and introducing new reforms are the most effective means of fighting against this ever-changing competitiveness and against all forms of profiteering.

Key Words: global competitiveness • globalization • local governments • mining and forestry legislation • multinational companies • natural resources • political elites • profiteering

International Review of Administrative Sciences, Vol. 74, No. 2, 195-216 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0020852308090773


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