The African Development Bank Group (AfDB) has pledged 80 million dollars toward the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DRC) first population and housing census in more than four decades, in a move development partners say will lay the statistical groundwork for evidence-based planning in one of Africa’s largest economies.
The announcement was made on March 23, 2026, in Kinshasa during a donor roundtable convening the census’s technical and financial partners. The AfDB’s contribution represents a significant share of the 200 million dollars in total commitments announced at the event.
The last population census in the DRC was held in 1984. Since then, the country has undergone significant demographic transformation, with its population now estimated at more than 112.8 million inhabitants, almost four times the 1984 figure.
Of the AfDB commitment, 50 million dollars will fund census operations, while 30 million dollars will support capacity building for national institutions including the National Institute of Statistics (INS) and those involved in planning, programming, budgeting, and monitoring and evaluation.
Mohamed Coulibaly, Country Programme Officer for the DRC at the AfDB, described the moment as historic, saying the bank wished to support the country through strengthening statistical institutions in order to ensure the effective, transparent and sustainable implementation of the exercise.
President Félix-Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo, who chaired the roundtable, described the census as far more than a technical or administrative exercise. He said the event marks a moment of truth for the country, calling it an occasion where the nation decides to know itself better in order to govern itself better, plan better and transform itself better. He added that continuing to plan without reliable and up-to-date data would be to govern without visibility and therefore weaken the capacity of the state to respond accurately to the expectations of the population.
The World Bank separately pledged 75 million dollars specifically for the census, within a broader 100 million dollar programme that also targets strengthening the national statistical system, including institutions, staff training and data systems at both national and provincial levels. Other development partners including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the United Nations (UN) also announced contributions, while Côte d’Ivoire pledged support for data collection equipment and knowledge exchange. The Congolese government has already mobilised 30 million dollars from the state budget for the exercise.
The census is expected to significantly improve the DRC’s capacity to design targeted infrastructure and social investment programmes, strengthen public service delivery, and support long-term economic transformation across the country’s 26 provinces.
