Cash-strapped Congolese eye deep inequalities ahead of election
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00:00 Five years after graduating with a diploma in computer network maintenance,
00:05 Georges is unable to find a job in his field or start his own business.
00:10 Instead, he works as a motorcycle taxi driver.
00:14 Runaway inflation and a weak currency mean he struggles to make ends meet.
00:19 "I'm not happy because the country is not helping us young people,
00:25 especially those of us who have studied.
00:28 I sacrificed myself to go to college, but you end up like this.
00:33 There's no work."
00:36 Georges is among the many frustrated with poor living conditions,
00:41 which prevail despite the Democratic Republic of Congo's vast critical minerals wealth.
00:46 The untapped resources are estimated to be worth 24 trillion dollars.
00:52 The DRC is the world's top producer of cobalt, key for electric batteries,
00:57 while analysts expect it to surpass Peru as the largest producer of copper.
01:02 The country has seen an economic upturn in recent years,
01:06 with annual GDP growth reaching 8.5 percent in 2022,
01:11 but very little wealth seems to have trickled down.
01:15 "Given the rise in prices of minerals at the international level,
01:18 we have increased production at the national level,
01:21 but this growth is not helping the poor because it's growth that benefits a political caste,
01:26 and the population doesn't benefit from it."
01:29 About 60 percent of the nearly 100 million Congolese live on less than two dollars a day,
01:35 while the unemployment rate sits stubbornly over 20 percent.