Democratic Republic of the Congo

The African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States is a group of countries in Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific that was created by the... Georgetown Agreement in 1975. The group's main objectives are sustainable development and poverty reduction within its member states, as well as their greater integration into the world's economy. All of the member states, except Cuba, are signatories to the Cotonou Agreement with the European Union. The Cotonou Agreement is the successor to the Lomé Conventions. One of the major differences from the Lomé Convention is that the partnership is extended to new actors such as civil society, private sector, trade unions and local authorities. These will be involved in consultations and planning of national development strategies, provided with access to financial resources and involved in the implementation of programmes. Many small island developing states are ACP states; the fourth Lomé Convention was revised in 1995 in Mauritius and gives special attention to island countries in this agreement.
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The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, is a free trade area with twenty member states stretching from Libya to Zimbabwe. COMESA formed in... December 1994, replacing a Preferential Trade Area which had existed since 1981. Nine of the member states formed a free trade area in 2000 , with Rwanda and Burundi joining the FTA in 2004 and the Comoros and Libya in 2006. COMESA is one of the pillars of the African Economic Community. In 2008, COMESA agreed to an expanded free-trade zone including members of two other African trade blocs, the East African Community and the Southern Africa Development Community .
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The African Development Bank Group is a development bank established in 1964 with the intention of promoting economic and social development in... Africa. The Group comprises the African Development Bank , the African Development Fund , and the Nigeria Trust Fund . AfDB provides loans and grants to African governments and private companies investing in the regional member countries in Africa. It is owned and funded by member governments, and has a public-interest mandate to reduce poverty and promote sustainable development. Its headquarters is in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. Following the end of colonial period in Africa, growing desire for more unity within the continent led to the establishment of two draft charters, one for the establishment of the Organisation of African Unity , and for a regional development bank.
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The African Union is a union consisting of 54 African states. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established on 9 July 2002,... the AU was formed as a successor to the Organisation of African Unity . The most important decisions of the AU are made by the Assembly of the African Union, a semi-annual meeting of the heads of state and government of its member states. The AU's secretariat, the African Union Commission, is based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Among the objectives of the AU's leading institutions are: The African Union is made up of both political and administrative bodies. The highest decision-making organ is the Assembly of the African Union, made up of all the heads of state or government of member states of the AU. The Assembly is chaired by Yayi Boni, president of Benin, elected at the 18ordinary meeting of the Assembly in January 2012. The AU also has a representative body, the Pan African Parliament, which consists of 265 members elected by the national parliaments of the AU member states. Its president is Idriss Ndele Moussa.
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William Daniel "Danny" Hillis is an American inventor, entrepreneur, and author. He co-founded Thinking Machines Corporation, a company that... developed the Connection Machine, a parallel supercomputer designed by Hillis at MIT. He is also co-founder of the Long Now Foundation, Applied Minds, Metaweb, and author of The Pattern on the Stone: The Simple Ideas That Make Computers Work. Daniel Hillis was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1956. His father, William Hillis, was a US Air Force epidemiologist studying hepatitis in Africa and relocated with his family through Rwanda, Burundi, Zaire, and Kenya. He spent a brief part of his childhood in Calcutta, India when his father was a visiting faculty at ISI, Calcutta. During these years the young Hillis was home schooled by his mother Aryge Briggs Hillis, a biostatistician, and developed an early appreciation for mathematics and biology. His younger brother is David Hillis, a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Texas at Austin, and his sister is Argye E. Hillis, a professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins University.
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Kaysha, born Edward Mokolo Jr. on January 22, 1974 in Kinshasa, is a singer/rapper and producer that works in places like the West indies, South... America and Africa. He was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo but immigrated to France with his parents at the age of seven. Kaysha is very well known for his first hit single which uses a sample from West Indian band Kassav's Oulé in a song called "Bounce Baby", which introduced him to fans all over the world. Kaysha's first two hits were "Telephone" and "Bounce baby" from his album I'm Ready. The next year, he changed his entire style to record a more urban album called Worldwidechico with a duo with Wu Tang Clan's Killah Priest. His latest hit to date is "On dit quoi", a huge hit all around Africa, from his album It's All Love, released in his own label Sushiraw. Kaysha is also a successful music producer. He produced songs for the most known artists in the Afro-Caribbean scene, including Passi, Solaar, Jacob Desvarieux, Soumia, Elizio, Ludo, and others. Kaysha gained new fans all around the world by doing literally thousands of shows around Africa, the West Indies and anywhere his feet could take him.
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Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania , is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and... the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern border lies on the Indian Ocean. Tanzania is a state composed of 26 regions , including those of the semi-autonomous region of Zanzibar. The head of state is President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, elected in 2005. Since 1996, the official capital of Tanzania has been Dodoma, where Parliament and some government offices are located. Between independence and 1996, the main coastal city of Dar es Salaam served as the country's political capital. Today, Dar es Salaam remains the principal commercial city of Tanzania and the de facto seat of most government institutions. It is the major seaport for the country and its landlocked neighbours.
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Burundi , officially the Republic of Burundi , is a landlocked country in the Great Lakes region of Eastern Africa bordered by Rwanda to the north,... Tanzania to the east and south, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west. Its capital is Bujumbura. Although the country is landlocked, much of the southwestern border is adjacent to Lake Tanganyika. The Twa, Tutsi, and Hutu peoples have occupied Burundi since the country's formation five centuries ago. Burundi was ruled as a kingdom by the Tutsi for over two hundred years. However, at the beginning of the twentieth century, Germany and Belgium occupied the region, and Burundi and Rwanda became a European colony known as Ruanda-Urundi. Political unrest occurred throughout the region, in part, because of social differences between the Tutsi and Hutu, provoking civil war in Burundi throughout the middle twentieth century. Presently, Burundi is governed as a presidential representative democratic republic. Burundi is one of the five poorest countries in the world.
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Rwanda  /ruːˈɑːndə/ or  /ruːˈændə/, officially the Republic of Rwanda , is a country in... central and eastern Africa with a population of approximately 11.7 million . Located a few degrees south of the Equator, Rwanda is bordered by Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. All of Rwanda is at high elevation, with a geography dominated by mountains in the west, savanna in the east, and numerous lakes throughout the country. The climate is temperate, with two rainy seasons and two dry seasons every year. The population is young and predominantly rural, with a density among the highest in Africa. Rwandans form three groups: the Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa. The Twa are a pygmy people who descend from Rwanda's earliest inhabitants, but scholars disagree on the origins of and differences between the Hutu and Tutsi; some believe that they are derived from former social castes, while others view them as being races or tribes. Christianity is the largest religion in the country, and the principal language is Kinyarwanda, which is spoken by most Rwandans. Rwanda has a presidential system of government.
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Uganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South... Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by Tanzania. The southern part of the country includes a substantial portion of Lake Victoria, which is also shared by Kenya and Tanzania. Uganda takes its name from the Buganda kingdom, which encompasses a large portion of the south of the country including the capital Kampala. The people of Uganda were hunter-gatherers until 1,700 to 2,300 years ago, when Bantu-speaking populations migrated to the southern parts of the country. Uganda gained independence from Britain on 9 October 1962. The official languages are English and Swahili, although multiple other languages are spoken in the country. The Ugandans were hunter-gatherers until 1,700 to 2,300 years ago. Bantu-speaking populations, who were probably from central Africa, migrated to the southern parts of the country. These groups brought and developed ironworking skills and new ideas of social and political organization.
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