It took 42 years. Since 1984, the Democratic Republic of the Congo had been navigating blind, governing a vast territory and a population whose exact number and distribution no one truly knew.
In 2026, that page has finally turned with the launch of the second census in the country’s history, and this titanic undertaking is now entering a new phase after a roundtable devoted to its financing.
Counting the population of a country as large as Western Europe, crossed by conflict zones, impenetrable forests and communities sometimes accessible only by river or air: the logistical challenge is on the scale of Congolese geography that is, colossal.
But the stakes justify the effort. Without reliable demographic data, it is impossible to seriously plan investments in health, education, infrastructure or agriculture. A state that does not know how many citizens it has, or where they live, governs in a fog.
The financing roundtable is a decisive step, because that is where the credibility of the entire process is at stake.
A census rushed through for lack of resources would be worse than no census at all: it would produce distorted data on which public policies would be built for decades. The DRC waited 42 years to get here. It can take the time to do it right.
