In the interests of fairness and equal opportunity for public-sector jobs, the law governs public-sector recruitment in the Democratic Republic of Congo. To reinforce this commitment, under the Congolese constitution, public administration is apolitical (see Article 193 of the Constitution). This is intended to prevent the politicisation of public administration, by shielding it against clientelism, nepotism, rent-seeking, etc., what has sometimes been referred to as ‘practical norms’ (see Olivier de Sardan 2010). From this perspective, the main role of the civil service is to manage the human resources of the Congolese state, in particular the recruitment. However, the Congolese public administration is currently characterised by all the practices mentioned above. In practice, recruitment in the Congolese public sector has evolved considerably. Particularly at the Ministry of the Environment and Sustainable Development (MoE), recruitment is fragmented and diffuse. In other words, the State no longer has a monopoly on recruitment in accordance with the law. How fragmented is recruitment of civil servants at the MoE? Current recruitment practice is not only fragmented but also organised according to the interests of bureaucratic (civil servants) and political actors.

This analysis is based on empirical evidence gathered since 2020 as part of our doctoral research, with civil servants in the MoE administration – from senior civil servants to messenger – through a qualitative approach of ethnography of bureaucracy (Bierschenk & Olivier de Sardan 2021). Our findings show that current recruitment in the environmental administration is fragmented. Several actors and networks of actors drive this recruitment, in particular political actors for electoral motivations, senior civil servants for rent-seeking purposes and other categories of civil servants for socio-economic and professional reasons. In addition, the donors who largely support this administration have also contributed to the fragmentation of recruitment. Our investigations show, for example, that a number of development programmes have ended up becoming traditional or even autonomous administrations. This has also led to a plethora of staff.

To sum up, recruitment in the Congolese public sector, mainly in the environmental sector, should no longer be approached as a state monopoly, in accordance with the law; but rather considered in its real dimension, as a contestable and negotiable subject. Recruitment is tending to become informal, like the Congolese economy (MacGaffey 1983). It is maintained by actors and networks of sectoral actors who shape the functioning of the administration according to their potential interests, which are often multiple: electoral, economic, developmental, professional, and so on. Understanding this empirical reality may enable the Congolese state to know how to manage its human resources in this very useful sector for its development.

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