Prénom de l'expert

Thierry

Nom de l'expert

VIRCOULON

 This study highlights the particular situation of the Mbororo minority, which has settled in the Northwest English-speaking province that is more conducive to livestock farming than the Southwest.

Although it has largely gone unnoticed in France, the agreement signed on December 3, 2020 between the European Union (EU) and the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (ACP) is a major shift in the long-standing relations between the EU and countries in the Global South. 

Since 2020, the exploitation of gold from mining sites in the Wamuzimu chiefdom in the South Kivu province by Chinese companies has aroused great discontent among the population. 

China and Africa have enjoyed a strong relationship since the wave of African independences in the 1960s. Nevertheless, relations between China and Africa have significantly expanded since the late 1990s and have been fueled by a growing discourse centered on a “win-win” partnership between China and Africa. 

The Mbororo are Fulani who, unlike the Fulbe, have not become sedentary and have practiced nomadic herding for a long time. However, over the past several decades, they have been undergoing a sedentarization process in northern Cameroon (Septentrion), to the point that many of them have become semi-sedentary and agro-pastoralists.

This community of herders faces environmental, land, fiscal and criminal insecurities. 

In the far northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the province of Ituri experienced a decade of relative peace between 2007 and 2017 and is nowadays victim of the resurgence of its historic inter-communal conflict between the Hema and the Lendu. 

Despite the coronavirus pandemic and the passing of  President Pierre Nkurunziza on June 8, 2020, the election cycle (presidential, legislative, senatorial, communal and hillside elections) have been upheld and went smoothly. Not only has the ruling party, the National Council for the Defense of Democracy-Forces for the Defense of Democracy (CNDD-FDD) remained in power, but it has also consolidated its dominance over an institutional system that had been modified with the 2018 constitutional revision.

To create a political shift that draws a line under conflict once and for all, it is not always enough to draft a democratic constitution and call elections. 

Elections are held on a regular basis in various African countries, but democracy is far from flourishing.