Africa Over Coffee: Civic Engagement, Democratic Renewal, and the Future of the Congo
By Junior Lusu Kika (ASCU President)
What does democratic renewal look like in a country confronting conflict, institutional fragility, and a growing demand for meaningful citizen participation?
This question was at the heart of the of Africa Over Coffee edition on 5 December 2025.
Africa Over Coffee, the ASCU’s signature dialogue series at the University of Cambridge, welcomed Ms Patricia Bakoke Temuni for a conversation on “Civic Engagement, Democratic Renewal, and the Future of the Congo.”
The session brought together members of the Cambridge community for a candid and reflective discussion about the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), exploring the country’s political challenges, the role of civic engagement, and the possibilities for democratic renewal and lasting peace.
Looking Beyond Simplified Narratives
One of the central themes of the conversation was the need to understand the challenges facing the Congo in their full complexity. The discussion reflected on the persistent insecurity in eastern DRC, the fragmentation between the political centre in Kinshasa and communities elsewhere in the country, weaknesses in governance and decentralisation, and questions surrounding political leadership and institutional legitimacy.
Regional dynamics, including tensions involving Rwanda and allegations concerning external support for armed groups, formed an important part of the discussion. At the same time, the conversation cautioned against explanations that attribute Congo’s challenges exclusively to external actors.
Instead, attention was drawn to domestic questions of governance, leadership, education, accountability, social cohesion, and the relationship between citizens and the state.
A recurring message was clear: understanding the present requires understanding the past.
Without sufficient engagement with Congo’s historical trajectory, from colonial rule and the post-independence period to successive political crises and decades of conflict, there is a risk of treating recurring problems as isolated events rather than manifestations of deeper structural challenges.
Democracy, Leadership and the Crisis of Trust
The conversation also examined the state of democracy in the DRC and the growing disconnect many citizens feel from political institutions. Participants reflected on what democracy means when institutions struggle to command public confidence, when parts of the country remain affected by insecurity, and when citizens feel removed from political decision-making.
This raised a broader question that extends beyond Congo: can democracy, especially in Africa, be sustained through elections alone, or does it require continuous civic participation between electoral cycles? The discussion pointed towards the latter.
Democratic renewal requires institutions that citizens can trust, but it also requires citizens who are informed, organised, and able to participate meaningfully in shaping public life. Leadership therefore cannot be understood solely as something exercised by those holding political office. Intellectuals, students, community organisers, civil society actors, and ordinary citizens all have roles to play.
Can Civil Society Lead a National Dialogue in the Congo?
One possible pathway explored during the conversation was a national dialogue with civil society leadership and participation.
Such a process could provide space for Congolese citizens to confront difficult questions about governance, national cohesion, peace, accountability, and the country's political future.
Yet the discussion also acknowledged an important challenge: civil society cannot automatically be assumed to possess the capacity or independence necessary to fulfil this role.
Grassroots organisations may face limited resources, insecurity, political constraints, fragmentation, and difficulties sustaining mobilisation. Strengthening civic participation therefore requires more than calling for greater civil society involvement. It also means creating the conditions in which civic actors can organise, participate, challenge institutions, and propose alternatives effectively.
Ms Patricia Bakoke Temuni’s civic engagement and involvement with Sauvons la RDC provided a particularly relevant perspective on these questions, situating the discussion within wider efforts by Congolese citizens and leaders to rethink accountability, participation, and political change.
The Power of Telling Congo's Story
Another important theme emerging from the session was deceptively simple: we need to talk more about Congo.
For many people outside the country, the DRC enters public consciousness primarily through stories of war, minerals, displacement, or humanitarian crisis. While these realities cannot be ignored, they do not tell the whole story of Congo or of the people shaping its future. Storytelling can therefore become a form of civic engagement. Even the technology we carry every day offers an entry point. A smartphone, for example, can open a conversation about the minerals that power modern technologies, the global economic systems surrounding their extraction, and the communities whose lives intersect with those supply chains.
Making such connections can bring seemingly distant events closer to everyday life. More importantly, it can encourage people to see Congo not simply as the site of an enduring crisis, but as a country whose history, resources, politics, people, and future are deeply connected to wider global systems.
Universities and African student communities have an important role in creating spaces where those stories can be told with greater depth and nuance.
From Conversation to Civic Engagement
The discussion ultimately returned to the question of agency.
The challenges facing the DRC are profound. But focusing exclusively on the scale of those challenges risks overlooking the Congolese citizens, scholars, activists, organisers, and emerging leaders already working to imagine alternatives.
Civic engagement does not provide an immediate solution to decades of conflict and institutional weakness. It can, however, help rebuild the relationship between citizens and public institutions, strengthen demands for accountability, create spaces for dialogue, and ensure that debates about Congo's future include the people who must ultimately live that future.
That is also the purpose of Africa Over Coffee.
By bringing scholarship, leadership, lived experience, and the Cambridge community into conversation, the series seeks to create a space where difficult questions about Africa can be approached openly, critically, and constructively.
Our conversation with Ms Patricia Bakoke Temuni allowed us to imagine Congo, not only based on what's happening to the country, but also also looking at who gets to shape what comes next.
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