Of the 220 research reactors in operation today, only seven are on the African continent. In other words, with 17.2% of the world population and the strongest expected growth in the coming years, Africans have access to only 3% of the world's nuclear research reactor capacity. Marguerite Leonardi, senior advisor at NPC Consulting & Engineering, and Professor Vincent Lukanda Mwamba, Commissaire Général of the Commissariat Général à l’Energie Atomique, explain why that is a concern and why the research reactor in Kinshasa should be restarted urgently.

Organisational and technical measures are needed to improve the safety of the Democratic Republic of Congo's research reactor, an International Atomic Energy Agency team of experts has concluded. TRICO-II, at the Kinshasa Nuclear Research Centre (CREN-K), has not been in operation since 2003.

Rosatom and the Ministry of Scientific Research and Technological Innovations of the Republic of Congo have signed a Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.