News stories by Badylon Kawanda Bakiman

KIKWIT, DR Congo, Jan 02 (IPS) - It was almost four years ago in 2015 that members of Farmer's Frame of Idiofa (FFI), a farmers group in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), produced a mere eight tonnes of sweet potatoes on two hectares of land. But the main reason for the low yield had not necessarily been a climate-related one, but an educational one.

KIKWIT, DR Congo, Mar 04 (IPS) - This article is part of a series of stories and op-eds launched by IPS on the occasion of this year's International Women's Day on March 8.The numbers are hard to fathom. Nearly two million people driven from their homes in 2017 alone. The worst cholera epidemic of the past 15 years, with over 55,000 cases and more than 1,000 deaths. Countless others killed, maimed or sexually assaulted.

KIKWIT, DR Congo, Jul 02 (IPS) - Proposals to review the Democratic Republic of Congo's constitution to permit President Joseph Kabila to seek a third term of office, if accepted, will only plunge the Congolese further into poverty and insecurity, experts warn.

'The macroeconomic climate is looking good, with a growth rate varying between five and seven percent,' said Jean-Claude Masangu, governor of the Democratic Republic of Congo's Central Bank as he justified the release of new denominations of the Congolese franc.

The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo is enjoying success with the remedial education centres set up to give children from underprivileged backgrounds a free education and vocational training.

Farmers in the Democratic Republic of Congo are embracing a new variety of cassava which, in combination with improved agricultural techniques, easily outperforms yields from other popular types of this important crop.

While the Congolese are awaiting the official results of the late November presidential elections, three of the eleven candidates have already called for them to be annulled.

The 11 candidates contesting presidential elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo all pledge to improve peace and security in the country - promises received with varying degrees of scepticism by Congolese voters.

Long years of civil war and instability set off a crippling decline in coffee production in the Democratic Republic of Congo: the country's output in 2010 was less than a tenth the harvest twenty years earlier. Now the DRC government has a strategy to bolster recovery of the sector.

Subsistence farmers in the Democratic Republic of Congo's southwestern Bandundu Province are seeing their harvests double, thanks to an ambitious programme of support by the government.