Guidebook:

• Bradt is offering the best guidebook on Congo followed by Petit Futé for French-speakers.
• Lonely Planet also has a small section on Goma.

Congolese Newspapers:

• Le Potentiel
• Le Phare
• L’Observateur
• L’Agence Congolaise de Presse
• L’Avenir

Unfortunately, you cannot buy hard copies of newspapers in Goma. One of the best options is the Ikirezi bookshop in Kigali. They sell a wide range of international newspapers and magazines.

News outlets with African focus:

• African Arguments
• Africa Confidential
• The East African
• Jeune Afrique
• France 24
• RFI Africa
• BBC News Africa
• The Guardian – Global Development

Radio, TV:

• Radio Okapi (105.2). The Dialogue entre Congolais is particularly worth listening to.
• BBC Afrique
• BBC Swahili
• RFI (97.5)
• Mishapi (104.5)
• Mutaani (97.0, 87.8).
• Pole FM (91.4)
• Digital Congo (100.7)
• Radio Kivu 1 (88.7)
• Virunga Business Radio (VBR, 98.5)
• Radio Télévision nationale congolaise (RTNC)
• Sauti ya Injili, 97.5

You can buy a radio for as cheap as $10 at Virunga market. Radio Okapi is also available as a podcast.

Books:

I highly recommend you bring a kindle or similar device to Goma. You’ll greatly appreciate it.

• Congo: The Epic History of a People
• Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa.
• Africa’s World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe.
• The Trouble with the Congo: Local Violence and the Failure of International Peacebuilding..
• King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa.
• Congo Masquerade: The Political Culture of Aid Inefficiency and Reform Failure.
• The Dynamics of Violence in Central Africa.
• The Great African War: Congo and Regional Geopolitics, 1996-2006.
• The Congo Wars: Conflict, Myth and Reality.
• Stringer: A Reporter’s Journey in the Congo.
• In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu’s Congo.
• Radio Congo: Signals of Hope from Africa’s Deadliest War.
• Facing the Congo: A Modern-Day Journey into the Heart of Darkness.

Videos about Congo:

Conflict:

• Dan McCabe’s This is Congo and Congo – The road to ruin
• Orlando von Einsiedel’s Virunga

Environment:

• Orlando von Einsiedel’s Virunga

Goma:

• Pharrell Williams’ Happy from Goma and Happy Nafurahi.

Music:

• Kinshasa Symphony.
• Benda Bilili.
• Pharrell Williams’ Happy from Goma and Happy Nafurahi.
• Lexxus Legal’s L’art de la guerre, Fauchés, Pole Pole, Espoir, Paradis.
• Baloji’s Congo, Le Jour d’Après, Karibu Ya Bintou.
• Konono No.1’s Paradiso, Mama na Bana, Wumbanzanga, Ungudi Wele Wele, Lufuala Ndonga, Congotronics.

Art:

• Mapendo Sumuni’s art gallery Kivu Nuru in Goma.

Research organizations:

• Amnesty International
• Congo Research Group
• Enough Project
• Global Witness
• Human Rights Watch
• International Crisis Group
• International Peace Information System
• Pole Institute
• United Nations Group of Experts on the DRC
• Usalama Project, Rift Valley Institute
• MONUSCO

Congo researchers regularly exchange ideas and share articles on the Facebook group DRC Researchers.

Blogs:

• Jason Stearns
• Christoph Vogel
• Timo Mueller
• Fidel Bafilemba
• Janosch Kullenberg
• Christophe Rigaud
• Dominic Johnson
• Simone Schlindwein

To follow several blogs at once, check out Feedly, one of the best news aggregator application out there. The Pocket application allows you to save an article or web page to the cloud for later reading, which is very helpful given the intermittent internet coverage in Goma. If you want to blog yourself, check out WordPress.

Newsletters:

• Subscribe to Congo Research Network.
• Set google alerts (daily digest) for various key words such as Congo Kinshasa, DRC, Democratic Republic of the Congo, MONUSCO, ADF, M23, FDLR, etc. Instructions here.
• Subscribe to the weekly briefing of IPIS (International Peace Information Service)
• Daily digest for Congo by Relief Web.
• Weekly digest by Eastern Congo Initiative
• To get the latest information on dynamics in the UN Security Council, subscribe to the newsletter from Security Council Report. To get documents from the Council (i.e. resolutions, reports, presidential statements), subscribe to UN documents.
• MONUSCO’s panorama de presse (example, daily). Ask Cirspin Nlanda Ibanda (lnlanda@un.org) to be added to the list (seguy@un.org).
• MONUSCO’s Revue de Presse. Daily, it provides a great coverage of Congolese media (example) . Ask Crispin to be added to the list (lnlanda@un.org).

Twitter:

Twitter is an excellent source of information. Below are lists of people you should follow to stay tuned. Consider using Tweetdeck, which allows you to organize and build custom timelines, keep track of lists, searches, activity and more—all in one interface.

• Congolese and foreign journalists working on Congo
• Congolese politicians
• Researchers
• Diplomats
• Congolese civil society
• People working on minerals issues
• SGBV
• Rebels
• Humanitarians
• Rwandan government
• LRA

Maps:

• Example: City map of Goma, Groupements in North Kivu, road map for the Great Lakes Region, and distances in northeastern Congo.
• OCHA and Relief Web provide a range of excellent maps.
• Reise Know-How is selling very detailed travel maps on Congo. Definitely worth buying.
• Rift Valley Institute’s Usalama Project and Christoph Vogel have mapped armed groups across the Kivus.

Pictures:

Meet the Instagrammers challenging how you see Congo, including Pamela Kamale, Ley Uwera, Bernadette Vivuya, Esther Nsapu and Martin Lukongo.

International photographers include:

• • Carlo Ontal
  • Pete Muller
  • Phil Moore
  • Natalie Keyssar
  • Dan McCabe
  • Michael Christopher Brown
  • Marcus Blesdale
  • Richard Mosse
  • Giampaolo Musumeci
  • Justin Justkas Kasereka
  • Aubrey Graham
  • Patricia Willocq

Facebook Groups:

• North Kivu Life
• South Kivu Life
• DRC Researchers 
• UNV in DRC
• PARLONS EN!
• Blogosphère Gomatracienne
• Sauvons la RD