8/
The Washington Accords may be celebrated abroad.
But in Kinshasa and Goma, the question remains: whose peace, whose prosperity, whose stability?
👉🏿 Full op-ed here: thirdpath.africa/washington-a... #WashingtonAccords

7/
Congo must engage globally, yes.
But engagement must be anchored in sovereignty, dignity, and reciprocity.
Agreements that elevate one neighbor at Congo’s expense are not peace accords—they are instruments of predation.

6/
Most troubling: silence on M23.
Without credible disarmament and accountability, the promise of peace is hollow.
Economic integration cannot substitute for security guarantees.

5/
Rwanda gains industrial capacity, legitimacy, and investment pipelines.
The U.S. secures minerals of the future.
Congo is offered infrastructure promises—valuable, but insufficient compared to the systematic outsourcing of its wealth.

4/
This is not new.

• Berlin 1885 carved Africa without consent.
• Lusaka 1999 entrenched foreign military presence.
• Nairobi 2013 left eastern Congo vulnerable.
Washington 2025 risks becoming another chapter in this long continuum of dispossession.

3/
At the heart of the deal: critical minerals—tin, tantalum, tungsten, niobium, gold, lithium.
Rwanda is elevated as a hub of transformation.
The U.S. secures supply chains at minimal cost.
Congo, the source, is reduced to a supplier.

2/
Signed in December between Kinshasa, Kigali, and Washington, the accords promise peace and stability.
But beneath the polished language lies a troubling reality: Congo risks losing sovereignty over its own soil and resources.

The institution lecturing Africa about governance can’t manage its own workforce fairly.
The 22,000 STCs deserve justice: recognition, compensation, credit restoration.
Africa deserves better than this exploitative model. Full exposé: thirdpath.africa/the-hidden-h...

Worse: Their work was stolen.
Bank investigations documented permanent staff claiming authorship of STC research—sometimes ‘generously’ adding the consultant as a ‘contributor.’
The hypocrisy? African countries BORROW to pay for this dysfunction.

Result? Less qualified staff hired through connections couldn’t do the technical work.
So the Bank hired 22,000 SHORT-TERM CONSULTANTS to do it instead.
No benefits.No retirement. No healthcare. No security.Some worked 20+ years producing the Bank’s intellectual output.
Now being discarded en masse.

When I joined in the late 1990s, the Bank recruited through rigorous merit-based programs: YPP, JPA, distinguished mentorship.
Then hiring shifted to managers. Nepotism replaced merit. Personal connections, family networks, even romantic interests.
The Bank’s own Tribunal documented it.

ARMA builds on the African Mining Vision (AMV) but goes further: it proposes a treaty-based authority to enforce beneficiation, ban raw exports of strategic minerals, and launch a Pan-African Mineral Exchange. Where AMV outlines aspirations, ARMA codifies obligations.

Thank you, Duncan—your article is timely and incisive. The framing of African agency as historically situated and strategically adaptive resonates deeply with our work.

That’s precisely why we’re advancing the African Resource Management Authority (ARMA)—to institutionalize that agency through treaty-based governance, beneficiation mandates, and youth-led value chains.