.Kinshasa, June 16th, 2025 (CPA) – The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is preparing to take over the rotating presidency of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR), official sources told CPA on Monday.
‘It is in this context that the executive secretary of the ICGLR will be paying a working visit to the Congolese capital from June 16th to June 20th, 2025, to discuss with the Congolese authorities the security situation in the east of the country, the practical arrangements for organizing the next summit, the organization’s financial situation, and other issues of common interest’, said Didier Mazenga, Minister for Regional Integration.
The source added that the DRC will be taking the helm of this regional organization during the ninth summit of the organization’s heads of state and government, which is scheduled to take place in Kinshasa. The working visit to Kinshasa by the ICGLR’s executive secretary will be used to set dates for the convening of the summit. The minutes of the DRC’s Council of Ministers indicated that, with regard to the rotating presidency of the ICGLR, provided for in article 23 of its Pact, the Republic of Angola, which currently holds the presidency, has well exceeded the legal time limit of two years and is now in its fourth year.
The DRC is therefore preparing to take up this position, in accordance with the relevant resolutions of the report of the 18ᵉ Meeting of the Regional Inter-ministerial Committee of the member countries of this organization, held in Luanda, Republic of Angola, on 24 November 2024, as well as the notification of the withdrawal of the Republic of Burundi to assume the rotating Presidency of the ICGLR in favor of the DRC. Officially created in 2007, the ICGLR began working with the states of the region to establish lasting peace. As a sub-regional organisation, it quickly established itself as a framework for discussion and work on the common challenges facing the Great Lakes region. It is a regional mechanism for peace, security, stability and development in the main countries of Africa’s Great Lakes region, as well as in the region’s immediate neighboring states, which are referred to as co-opted countries.
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