Part II Federal and Hybrid Federal Systems in Africa, 7 Regionalism under the Congolese Constitution of 18 February 2006: Progress and Challenges

This chapter details how, in the absence of a firm commitment to constitutionalism, the decentralisation system in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has floundered. It explores the main features of the regionalisation of Congolese provinces as provided for in the 2006 Constitution and the implementation challenges that have been encountered. While there is national consensus on the ‘provincialisation’ of the country, there continues to be disagreement over the form of the state within which the provinces are organised and the level of control the central government should exercise over the provinces to safeguard national unity. Constitutional regionalism implies that provinces receive from the Constitution political, administrative, and financial autonomy that minimises any direct control from the central government. This design was deliberately adopted as a way to counter and reduce the incidence of dictatorship that has plagued the DRC since independence.