The Paradox at the Center
Alfred Romuald Nguya Poaty, a researcher at the university’s Laboratoire de Recherches en Économie et Gestion, successfully defended his thesis in economic sciences. His subject was as timely as it was troubling: the effects of economic growth on structural transformation in the CEMAC zone, covering the period from 2000 to 2020.
The CEMAC zone — the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa — includes Congo-Brazzaville, Cameroon, Chad, the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon. Together, they have pursued ambitious development trajectories over the past two decades, boosted by commodity revenues and stated commitments to economic emergence.
Nguya Poaty’s analysis landed with a sobering conclusion. “Economic growth exerts a positive but statistically non-significant effect on structural transformation” in the subregion. In plain terms: the region has grown without changing.
A Subregion Still Dependent
The data behind this conclusion are stark. The manufacturing sector in CEMAC countries remains severely underdeveloped, accounting for approximately 10% of economic activity. Food import dependency runs at 60 to 80 percent depending on the country, a figure that exposes the region’s vulnerability to external price shocks and supply disruptions.
These numbers describe economies that have monetized their natural resources without developing the industrial capacity, agricultural productivity, or services sophistication to sustain growth independently of commodity cycles. Oil wealth has generated revenues; it has not generated economic ecosystems.
Institutions as the Missing Link
The thesis does not merely describe the problem. It diagnoses it. Nguya Poaty identifies institutional quality as the fundamental variable that determines whether economic growth produces durable structural change. Where institutions are weak, growth remains extractive and concentrated. Where they are stronger, it can catalyze broader economic modernization.
This finding has direct implications for Congo-Brazzaville, which has long been among the more oil-dependent members of the CEMAC zone. The thesis suggests that the country’s path toward economic diversification runs through institutional reform — a conclusion that aligns with what the IMF and other multilateral actors have been arguing, often with limited uptake.
A Roadmap for Reform
Nguya Poaty’s recommendations were specific. He called for the strengthening of inclusive institutions, substantial investment in human capital, modernization of energy and transport infrastructure, support for small and medium enterprises, active industrial policy, improved orientation of foreign direct investment, stronger regional integration, and trade policies that favor local industries.
This is not an unfamiliar list. Similar prescriptions appear in development strategies across the continent. What the thesis adds is an empirical grounding: these are not ideological preferences but responses to a measurable gap between growth and transformation that has persisted for twenty years.
A Defense That Matters Beyond the University
The jury awarded the thesis a “très honorable” mention — the highest possible distinction. The committee was chaired by Pierre-Alexandre Kopp from Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, lending international weight to the evaluation.
The research was supervised by Antoine Ngakosso of Marien-Ngouabi University, an institution that has itself experienced the salary payment difficulties that illustrate the very institutional weaknesses Nguya Poaty was studying.
That irony is not lost on observers. A university struggling to pay its staff on time hosted a defense demonstrating that institutional dysfunction is the primary obstacle to Central Africa’s economic future. The findings, in that sense, were not abstract.