The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has approved a USD 442 million disbursement to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) after the African country implemented key reforms under a 38-month lending programme approved by the global monetary body in early 2025.
The IMF, in the second week of December, completed the second review of its Extended Credit Facility (ECF) and the first review of its Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF), unlocking USD 260 million under the RSF and USD 182 million under the ECF. The two programmes, worth USD 1.72 billion and USD 1.03 billion respectively over 38 months, were approved by the global monetary body’s Executive Board on January 15, 2025.
In a statement dated December 19, the IMF said economic activity in the DRC had remained resilient despite a challenging security situation in the eastern part of the African country. Violence recently broke out between DRC and Rwanda, despite the United States-brokered peace deal, which was signed earlier this year, along with the conclusion of a Qatar-mediated framework agreement between the government and the M23 rebel group.
“The ECF-supported programme aims to preserve macroeconomic stability, improve the business climate, strengthen governance and transparency, and support inclusive growth. Reforms under the programme include continued revenue mobilisation and deeper public financial management changes, with a focus on efficiency and accountability in the use of public resources,” reported The East African.
The RSF-supported programme seeks to help the African country’s conflict-affected economy advance its climate adaptation and mitigation agenda while consolidating its role in the transition to a low-carbon global economy.
“Economic activity in the Democratic Republic of the Congo remains resilient, underpinned by robust performance in the mining sector, and inflationary pressures have moderated. Notwithstanding the positive outlook, downside risks persist, particularly related to security and humanitarian challenges, deeper and more prolonged cuts in official development assistance, and renewed commodity price volatility,” said Kenji Okamura, the IMF’s deputy managing director and acting chair.
The global monetary body also said that Kinshasa’s performance under the ECF-supported programme had been satisfactory, with all performance criteria met through the end of June 2025, except for a condition barring the introduction or modification of multiple currency practices.
“Programme performance remained satisfactory, although some indicative targets, specifically those on social spending and emergency procedures, were missed due to elevated security-related expenditure,” the IMF noted.
While DRC met seven of eight non-continuous structural benchmarks, the remaining benchmark on standardised VAT invoicing was implemented with a short delay.
“All continuous benchmarks were met, and performance under the RSF was also deemed satisfactory. Two reforms, on climate-related fiscal risk analysis and disaster risk management policy, were implemented ahead of the review. Real GDP growth is projected to exceed 5% in 2025 and 2026, driven by the extractives sector,” the global monetary body said.
DRC’s external stability has also improved on the back of strong copper exports and prices, despite the temporary suspension of cobalt exports for much of 2025. The stronger current account, as per the IMF’s observations, supported reserve accumulation, though reserves remain below recommended levels.
Also, inflation fell sharply from 11.7% at the end of 2024 to 2.2% in November 2025, supported by tight monetary policy and a sharp appreciation of the Congolese franc. The African country’s central bank, at this backdrop, cut its monetary policy rate from 25% to 17.5% in October this year.