Economic Impact of Riverboat Trade in DR Congo – Moneyweb

Scholarly studies have focused significantly on road transportation in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Some research has looked into the urban landscape, while others have explored transportation amid the armed conflict prevalent in the eastern regions, characterized by numerous roadblocks.

The inland waterways of the Congo Basin, with 25,000 km designated as navigable, have been analyzed concerning the taxation regime of larger pushboat-barge convoys.

However, smaller-scale river transportation, critical to cities like Kinshasa, Mbandaka, and Kisangani, has not been as thoroughly investigated.

A substantial portion of traffic on these waterways is currently managed by wooden cargo vessels known as baleinières (translated to “whaleboats” in English).

Ranging from 20 to 40 meters in length, these handcrafted, locally designed vessels link burgeoning cities with agricultural communities situated in the rainforest’s hinterlands along fertile riverbanks.

My ongoing research focuses primarily on baleinières in the city of Kisangani, located in the Tshopo province of the DR Congo. I am interested in their emergence, evolution, materials, socio-technical dynamics, propulsion systems, and the crews that operate them.

I have also examined the systemic nature of their artisanal infrastructure and its dependence on traditional environmental knowledge.

Wooden baleinières have a history dating back to the early 1960s and have been essential to reinventing the transportation system across the Congo Basin since the 1990s.

These wooden vessels are vital for ensuring food security in central Africa’s river cities, including Kinshasa, the continent’s third-largest city, and they establish connections between the national capital and various provinces.

Due to a lack of statistics and limited research thus far, reliable data exists only for Kisangani, a city with a population of two million situated at the upper reaches of the navigable Congo river.

In Kisangani, around 80 baleinières arrive at the private secondary ports each month, with an average cargo of 150 tons of goods and about 150 passengers.

Meanwhile, Kinshasa, with a population of 17 million, is estimated to receive several hundred baleinières monthly.

Unfortunately, baleinières are infamous for their frequency and severity of accidents, claiming hundreds, if not thousands, of lives each year.

Research into the intricate socio-technical factors behind these accidents remains scarce, as does the study of how numerous individuals cope with these incidents yearly.

Key contributors to these issues include the structural deficiencies of the vessels and a lack of professional training and safe operations due to economic pressure.

Entirely born from local innovation, these ships are a necessity, which accounts for their affordability, unparalleled efficiency, and their ability to function without infrastructures such as fortified harbors, cranes, or docks, within a constantly changing environment.

The wooden ships of the Congo embody the complexities and contradictions of contemporary Congolese life. While grassroots technical and economic creativity secures the food supply for millions, it receives little to no protection or support against divisive and uncontrolled capitalism.

This capitalist framework takes a toll on both people and vessels. Ship owners, crews, and the traders they transport often operate solo, relying on personal connections for safety.

Origins, materials, and propulsion

The colonial origins that inspired the name baleinières comprised nine-meter, deckless, engineless boats riveted from prefabricated Belgian steel, towed by steamers for transporting building materials. Today, only the name remains.

The initial prototypes of wooden baleinières were constructed in the early 1960s by Congolese craftsman André “Bibeyi,” who combined colonial carpentry techniques with local traditional knowledge.

Bibeyi built the frame from local hardwoods, sealing it with bitumen, n’kasa ya kwanga leaves, and strips of recycled aluminum. He used tola wood, the favored timber for dugouts, for the hull.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Bibeyi’s peers and their descendants established shipyards along most principal waterways. In 2007, boat builders from Lake Kivu, in eastern DRC, brought Indian Ocean shipbuilding traditions to Tshopo province.

The introduction of both building and caulking techniques at the upper reaches of the navigable Congo ignited creativity among younger Congolese shipbuilders.

In the late 2000s, improvements to baleinières included converting low-cost diesel engines made in China into new propulsion systems. Local mechanics quickly modified the cooling systems and started adding more engines, allowing the ships to increase in size.

The new propulsion system provided an advantage beyond cost and readily available spare parts: if one engine required repair, the others continued to operate, effectively avoiding breakdowns.

What began as a makeshift solution for occasional travel developed into a consistent and reliable transportation system.

Baleinières represent one of the few technologies developed and exported locally from the DR Congo. Congolese shipbuilders have established mobile shipyards in neighboring countries, including the Republic of Congo (Congo-Brazzaville), the Central African Republic, and Cameroon.

These vessels serve as floating microcosms of life in today’s DR Congo. They encapsulate what French anthropologist Marcel Mauss (1966) referred to as a total social fact, as their material makeup reflects various aspects of the DR Congo’s history while their operation exposes the geographic, economic, political, infrastructural, and cultural conditions of the nation.

Enabling an economy of survival

Throughout the DR Congo, the combination of demographic growth and deteriorating long-distance connections has transformed the centralized colonial system—once funneling resources to Kinshasa—into a fragmented network of disconnected regions. Baleinières emerged to facilitate medium-range transport within this landscape.

The vessels transport food items (rice, cassava, palm oil, poultry, caterpillars, local spirits, livestock, bushmeat, fish) to urban centers, and return with manufactured goods (roofing sheets, furniture, motorbikes, mattresses, medical supplies, mosquito nets, phones, flip-flops, clothing).

Additionally, they transport the traders operating within this economy, allowing small-scale entrepreneurs to earn a modest living with minimal initial investment. They reflect the economic realities faced by many Congolese, who navigate their daily lives in a survival-oriented economy.

The slim profit margins in their trade are easily lost if entrusted to others, prompting traders to accompany their goods personally. Officials often claim nocturnal navigation is a primary cause of accidents, failing to consider that without nighttime travel, only half of trade routes could be completed, undermining the traders’ ability to make a living.

Artisanal infrastructure

The key to this system lies in how it addresses the infrastructural obstacles associated with river transport. Chief among these challenges is the need to load and unload without the aid of fortified ports, cranes, or other typical facilities, particularly as water levels fluctuate.

The operability of a baleinière relies on the skillful integration of engineered, muscular, and natural forces, through both kinetic solidarity and learned techniques.

One form of this artisanal infrastructure is called “kotindika,” where porters enter the water and push a loaded ship into deeper waters as it settles onto the riverbed. Because the vessel’s stewards double as porters, a baleinière equipped with two dugouts as mobile gangways effectively creates its own port, enabling it to load and unload wherever necessary.

This system is more inclusive than traditional transport infrastructure, supporting hundreds of porters, stewards, and their families. It is also more cost-effective and adaptable.

Local river markets rise and decline at various stopover points, aligning with the yearly production cycle of the rainforest and the fluctuating purchasing power of traveling traders.

However, due to the weekly rhythm driven by their passengers, few crew members can afford the time or resources for training, maintenance, or rest. While baleinières offer a solution, they present a double-edged sword.

Governance at the margin of the state

Effective governance within the vast expanse of the Congo Basin and its waterways is challenging. The success of baleinières hinges on their ability to operate on the margins of the state, evading tight bureaucratic restrictions since it is difficult to establish roadblocks on water routes.

Simultaneously, state authorities tap into this economy via taxation and regulations at the ports of river towns.

Several development initiatives aimed at addressing the safety issues associated with accidents have attempted to regulate the design and construction of vessels according to foreign standards. However, their effectiveness has been limited, as these efforts often overlook local operational realities—a phenomenon referred to as a “revenge of context.”

Despite this, the baleinière phenomenon has grown so expansive, and the transportation need remains so pressing, that leaving the system unchanged is not feasible. Any future initiatives must be rooted within local community practices and their established methods of operation, dialogue, and interaction.

Peter Lambertz, research associate, Centre d’anthropologie culturelle, Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB).

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.