The period under review in Guinea was marked by political discord between the National Committee of Reconciliation and Development (CNRD) military authorities, who have held power since September 2021, and civilian opposition groups calling for an inclusive and transparent implementation of the 24-month transition road map adopted in December 2022. Many opposition figures criticized what they view as insufficient progress and a lack of transparency in carrying out the road map, accusing the CNRD regime of failing to prioritize the restoration of constitutional order despite the junta’s initial assurances. The CNRD described the road map as “dynamic,” emphasizing that its implementation would depend on prevailing circumstances and socioeconomic development challenges, which they said they considered to be as important as, or more important than, other concerns.
The end of December 2024 marked the theoretical conclusion of the transition, but none of the 10 points on the transition road map had been fully achieved. In his December 31 address to the nation, transition president General Mamady Doumbouya did not specify a new transition calendar. He limited himself to promising an executive order in the first quarter of 2025 that would set the date for the constitutional referendum, and additionally stated that 2025 would be an election year, but without clarifying which elections beyond the constitutional referendum he was referring to, or when they would be held. The alliance of opposition parties and movements known as Forces vives de Guinée announced in early January 2025 that they would no longer recognize the legitimacy of the transition authorities, arguing that they had exceeded their time in office without any consensual basis, which, in the group’s view, could have been achieved only through an inclusive and sincere dialogue process.
In the context of this acrimonious relationship, the CNRD regime greatly restricted freedom of expression and civil liberties by shutting down the country’s three main private media organs – Espace, Djoma and FIM-FM – in early 2024, and by arresting journalists and political figures on charges such as “giving offense to the head of state.” In July 2024, two prominent members of the banned National Front for the Defense of the Constitution (FNDC) movement, Foninke Mengué and Bilo Bah, were kidnapped by unknown gunmen and have since disappeared. Government authorities say they do not know anything about them, while their relatives and colleagues accuse the government of being behind their disappearance.
The year also saw the suspicious prison-cell death of the former chief of defense staff, Gen. Sadiba Koulibaly, just a few days after being swiftly convicted of insubordination and other charges. A medical doctor in Kankan was also found dead in his prison cell in late September, just a few days after his arrest for tearing an effigy of the transition president.
The year 2024 also saw the conclusion of the historic trial stemming from the September 2009 massacre, which resulted in former transition president Moussa Dadis Camara and several of his codefendants being sentenced to numerous years in prison – 20 years in Camara’s case – and the judges’ call for the payment of reparations to the victims.
Economic activity was dominated by the launch of operations at the Simandou iron ore mine in southeastern Guinea, which is considered to hold the most extensive and highest-quality iron ore reserves in the world. This development created thousands of direct jobs and indirect opportunities. A series of financial scandals involving a total of more than $150 million were reported during the year, leading to the arrest and incarceration of the directors-general of the customs service, the revenue services and the Guinean Office for Publicity, as well as several of their colleagues.
Guinea was the first French colony in sub-Saharan Africa to regain its independence. It was the only one to vote against the proposed new French constitution in September 1958 by French President de Gaulle. It famously declared its independence on October 2, 1958. Ahmed Sékou Touré became the first president with his Democratic Party of Guinea – African Democratic Rally (PDG-RDA).
At home, Touré initially enjoyed considerable political capital, but later oversaw the establishment of a one-party regime, first de facto until 1982 and then de jure when the May 1982 constitution made the PDG the sole legal party in the country. Political dissent was not tolerated, and human rights organizations reported severe treatment for those arrested and jailed in the notorious Camp Boiro prison in Conakry. This led many Guineans to flee and seek asylum in neighboring countries. By the time of Touré’s death in March 1984, approximately one-third of the Guinean population had reportedly left the country.
Externally, along with Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah – with whom, along with Mali, he had formed the Ghana-Guinea-Mali confederation that lasted from 1959 to 1961 – and others, Touré pursued a Pan-African agenda, advocating for the creation of a United States of Africa. Guinea co-led the formation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in 1963, whose first substantive executive secretary was the Guinean Telli Diallo, as well as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in 1975. Guinea lent unequivocal support to liberation movements in countries such as Algeria, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and South Africa. Viewed through the lens of the Cold War ideological divide, some perceived the Touré regime as being “communist.” However, though at times it appeared more aligned with the socialist world, a critical look at the country’s foreign policy actions reveals a more pragmatic and balanced posture. It carried out a skillful balancing act that allowed it to maintain good relations with ideologically divergent partners such as the United States, the Soviet Union and China, and even with East and West Germany and both North and South Korea all simultaneously.
After Touré’s death, the military seized power under Col. Lansana Conté. Following the end of the Cold War, a new constitution was introduced in 1991 that emphasized multiparty democracy and a market economy. Since then, six presidential (1993, 1998, 2003, 2010, 2015 and 2020) and four legislative (1995, 2002, 2013 and 2020) elections have been held in the country with the participation of multiple parties. Lansana Conté converted his military committee into a political party called the Party for Unity and Progress (PUP). PUP won all elections, which were generally perceived as being manipulated, until the death of Conté in December 2008.
During Conté’s presidency, increased opportunities for private business led to the rise of wealthy businesspeople who relied heavily on corrupt government connections. Despite this, overall economic growth rates remained low and a large portion of the population lived in poverty. However, Guinea did not experience the civil wars that affected some of its neighboring countries in the 1990s, although it hosted many refugees from Liberia, Sierra Leone, Côte d’Ivoire and Guinea-Bissau. At times, more than 1 million refugees were present in the southern region of Guinea. In late 2000, incursions by Liberian government forces under Charles Taylor and allied Guinean groups in the Guinean town of Guéckédou and surrounding border areas with Liberia were quickly repelled.
When Conté died, Capt. Moussa Dadis Camara and a group of lower-ranking officers immediately seized power in the country’s second successful military coup. Initially welcomed, they governed in an increasingly erratic and authoritarian manner that eroded their support. These abuses reached a climax with a significant massacre in September 2009 of opposition forces protesting Camara’s reported intention to remain in power. The fallout from this massacre eventually led to Camara’s downfall. In December 2009, his aide de camp, Aboubacar Sidiki “Toumba” Diakité, attempted to assassinate him. Camara had to be evacuated for medical treatment abroad, first in Morocco and then in Burkina Faso, where he remained in what became a forced exile until 2021. He was replaced by his deputy, Gen. Sékouba Konaté, who organized presidential elections in June and November 2010.
These elections proved to be the country’s most open multiparty presidential elections. With about 21 candidates in the first round in June, Alpha Condé of the Guinean People’s Rally (RPG) party and Cellou Dalein Diallo of the Union of Democratic Forces of Guinea (UFDG) party advanced to a second round in November. Condé was declared the winner amid claims from Diallo and his supporters that the election had been rigged.
During his first term, the West African Ebola epidemic in 2013 – 2015 affected Guinea, as well as its neighbors Sierra Leone and Liberia. Although the epidemic caused an economic crisis, Guinea recovered quickly. However, despite high hopes and strong economic growth figures on paper, Condé failed to change the country’s economic fortunes, as the same widespread corruption continued under his leadership.
Relations between the government and the opposition remained acrimonious. The latter – especially Cellou Dalein Diallo and his UFDG – claimed that the legislative elections in 2013, the presidential elections in 2015 and 2020, and the local elections in 2018 had been manipulated in favor of Condé and the ruling RPG.
In March 2020, Condé changed the constitution in a controversial referendum, allowing him to seek a third term in office following the October 2020 presidential election. Many observers described this as a “constitutional coup,” and scores of Guineans were killed during protests against it from October 2019 until the election.
Condé was subsequently overthrown in Guinea’s third successful military coup on September 5, 2021, by none other than the man he had appointed to lead a new military unit called the special forces, Col. Mamady Doumbouya. Doumbouya and his National Committee for Reconciliation and Development (CNRD) promised a short transition and credible elections to restore constitutional order based on a 10-point road map agreed with ECOWAS in December 2022. The transition was supposed to end by December 31, 2024, but it did not occur.
There is no competition from any organized group with the state’s monopoly on the use of force throughout the national territory. However, the country is experiencing widespread insecurity. Two high-profile cases of this nature occurred in Conakry in 2024, when about five dead bodies were discovered at close intervals in markets in Conakry. Deadly attacks by criminals were reported in Kankan and Siguiri, in the east of the country, generally during the theft of motorbikes. Intercity travelers are also sometimes attacked by bandits, though these incidents do not always result in fatalities. This particularly occurs between Faranah and Mamou when traveling at night.
Monopoly on the use of force
No reports exist of individuals or groups being denied the right to acquire citizenship. However, because the state is unable to adequately provide some basic services, including justice, health care and human security, some citizens tend to express negative perceptions about its legitimacy.
State identity
Despite the fact that Guineans are overwhelmingly religious, with at least 80% identifying as Muslim, the state is secular. Religious dogma has no significant influence on the legal order or political institutions.
No interference of religious dogmas
The state’s administrative structures extend beyond maintaining law and order, but their territorial scope and effectiveness are limited. Judicial services, tax authorities and law enforcement are severely lacking in the interior of the country, as most law enforcement agents are concentrated in the capital and main urban centers. Road infrastructure is very poor or nonexistent in many areas. Of the roughly 7,000 km of national routes, none qualifies as a highway in the proper sense, and it is difficult to drive more than 100 km without encountering serious potholes. Health services are extremely limited in both the number and quality of facilities and services, leading many wealthy Guineans – including state officials – to seek health care abroad. The quality of education in public schools is very poor. According to World Bank data for 2022, 75.5% of the population had access to a water source, 31.3% had access to basic sanitation and 47.7% had access to electricity.
Basic administration
The last general elections – legislative and presidential – were held in 2020, respectively in March and October. Guinea’s incumbent president, Alpha Condé, won the presidential election, securing a controversial third term in office. There were reports of irregularities despite the presence of several competing parties. Guinea’s military junta, which took power in a coup in September 2021, disbanded the elected government. The coup leader, Mamady Doumbouya, a Guinean military officer, has served as president since the 2021 coup. The junta announced it would organize elections to restore constitutional order in 2024, but these were not ultimately held. The transition government appears determined to eliminate the independent electoral management body and instead organize elections through the Ministry of Territorial Administration. The independence of the latter body in the current context is highly questionable. Given the closure of major independent media in 2024, the restrictions on public liberties, the banning of many parties, the repression of opponents and the highly likely candidacy of the transition president, it is difficult to foresee the quality, credibility and integrity of the promised elections, which have been postponed to 2025.
Free and fair elections
Since the September 2021 military coup led by the National Committee for Reconciliation and Development (CNRD), there have been no elected representatives in the country’s governing structures. The entity closest to a representative body is the National Transitional Council (CNT), which serves in place of an elected parliament. Its 81 members were “selected” from various strata of society, including 15 from political parties, and then confirmed by a military committee. A civilian prime minister, Mamadou Oury Bah, was appointed in February 2024 and has been in office since. Likewise, the overwhelming majority of cabinet ministers are civilians. However, with a military head of state, Mamady Doumbouya, all eight regional governors, all 33 prefects and all 342 sous-prefects have been drawn without exception from the military since 2023, and the military has total control of all state institutions. The remaining elected representatives – the local counselors and mayors – were all replaced in early 2024 by “special delegations,” composed of members all appointed by CNRD.
Effective power to govern
The transition charter, which serves as a transitional constitution, guarantees the right of assembly, association and political activities. However, in practice, the exercise of these rights is severely restricted. Since May 2022, the transition authorities have “suspended” all public protests and political activities until “further notice.” Since then, all such demonstrations have been prohibited. The government appears to use intimidation, harassment or threats of retaliation to prevent citizens from exercising the rights to association and assembly, for example by arbitrarily arresting, detaining and imprisoning political activists. In July 2024, two prominent members of the disbanded National Front for the Defense of the Constitution (FNDC) were reportedly abducted by unknown individuals, whom some citizens suspect to have been state agents. The authorities have denied involvement, and as of the time of writing, their whereabouts were still unknown. Other cases of opponents being imprisoned (Aliou Bah, leader of the Mouvement démocratique liébral MoDeL, in December 2024) or severely injured (Abdoul Sacko in February 2025) raise serious concerns about the junta’s commitment to returning power to civilians.
Association / assembly rights
There are severe restrictions on freedom of expression. Authorities withdrew the permits of the three largest independent private media outlets – Espace, Djoma and FIM-FM – in early 2024, alleging that they had failed to respect journalistic ethics and were a threat to “national security.” Critical journalist Habib Marouane Camara was arrested December 4, 2024, and had not been tried by the end of the year. Meanwhile, political actor Mamadou Aliou Bah was arrested in mid-December and sentenced to two years in prison for “giving offense to the president.” More recently, Abdoul Sacko was reported to have been kidnapped and injured in February 2025.
Freedom of expression
The separation of powers is formally established but very weak in practice. The executive, which is led by the CNRD, exercises practical control over both the CNT and the judiciary. This situation results from both a conscious decision by the military leadership and the attitudes of many magistrates and members of the CNT, who disregard their formal independence and tend instead to demonstrate loyalty to the executive in general and to CNRD in particular.
Separation of powers
The judiciary is to some extent institutionally differentiated, but is severely restricted by functional deficits, insufficient presence in some geographic areas and scarce resources. Its independence is heavily impaired by undue external influence and high levels of corruption as well as by demagogy on the part of magistrates, who tend to express their loyalty to the executive rather than seeking to protect their own independence. The tragic death of at least 60 people in N’Zérékoré’s stadium during a soccer match in December 2024 has neither led to an investigation nor resulted in any prosecutions, leaving mourning families without compensation. This is despite a complaint lodged at the tribunal of N’Zérékoré on March 10, 2025, by a group of lawyers on behalf of the victims.
Meanwhile, in a presidential decree read on state television on March 28, 2025, the current transitional president offered a pardon to former transitional president Moussa Dadis Camara, allowing him to be released from prison where he was serving a 20-year term for his role in the 2009 massacre.
Independent judiciary
In 2024, the Court for the Repression of Economic and Financial Crimes (CRIEF) continued its hearings and prosecutions of figures belonging to the previous regime, including the former prime minister, the former parliamentary speaker and several cabinet ministers. In December, the court sentenced the former defense minister to five years in jail and imposed heavy fines, including the seizure of several properties he had improperly acquired, according to the court. Likewise, on December 7, 2024, the director-general of the customs services and his deputy were arrested for allegedly embezzling more than 700 billion Guinean francs (about $80 million). Further, 11 other members of the same service were later arrested and jailed. In late December, the director-general of the revenue services was in turn arrested and jailed for allegedly mishandling the tax reporting of three companies with more than $100 million at stake. At the same time, the director of the national publicity office (OGP) was arrested and jailed on similar allegations of corruption and embezzlement.
Prosecution of office abuse
Individual political and civil rights are institutionally protected by the country’s laws, and mechanisms and institutions are established to prosecute, punish and redress violations of these rights. However, these protections or fair judicial processes rarely exist for people not connected to government officials or wealthy individuals. There are no systematic practices of discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity or race. However, those who express political preferences other than support for the CNRD are increasingly less tolerated, as shown by recent repression of political dissidents. There is no significant or public LGBTQ+ group in the country; thus, there has not been any specific public debate on this issue. Still, the idea of an LGBTQ+ sexual orientation is generally frowned upon in Guinean society, given the country’s religiosity.
Civil rights
Given that the country is experiencing military rule, with all elected bodies having been suspended, it is difficult to speak of democratic institutions. However, the only functioning institutional representative body is the National Transitional Council (CNT), which has served as a replacement for the elected parliament since the 2021 coup. Government ministers defend their departmental budgets before this council, which is at least nominally expected to exercise executive oversight. There have been no elected bodies at the regional or local levels since the early 2024 replacement of all elected mayors and state counselors by appointed “special delegations” across the country.
Performance of democratic institutions
No elected bodies were operating in 2024. The level of legitimacy accorded to appointed bodies differs across interlocutors. However, many citizens have lost confidence in the CNRD, as it has not honored many of its initial commitments. By the end of 2024, none of the 10 points indicated in the transition road map that it agreed with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) had been achieved. Although the transitional president promised in his end-of-year address to the nation that the constitutional referendum would take place in 2024, this did not happen. However, there are supporters of the CNRD as well as independent citizens who are very critical of political parties, particularly the traditional ones, arguing that party leaders lack sincere political conviction and that the internal functioning of most parties lack a democratic foundation. Religious leaders are generally respected, and are expected by some citizens to speak out when the executive violates its commitments or trespasses on fundamental human rights.
Commitment to democratic institutions
Most political parties lack social roots or representation, and very few are organizationally institutionalized. Most are built around their leader as an individual, and many are based on ethnicity. Because most political parties lack democratic internal procedures, the party system is highly fragmented. In July 2024, the transitional authorities released a report evaluating political parties against the provisions of the 1991 charter on political parties. Of the 211 parties listed before the coup, authorities dissolved 54, suspended 53 and put 67 under observation. The remaining 37 had not been evaluated because they could not be reached. All were accused of not respecting one or more provisions – including having national representation, maintaining proper accounting books, having a headquarters or holding regular conventions. Some critics questioned the motivation behind this evaluation, especially as it was performed by a transitional administration that has made its intention to dampen political party activities clear. However, many agree that the evaluation criteria are generally relevant and that most parties fail to meet the established standards.
Among the main parties, the Union of Democratic Forces of Guinea (UFDG) and former President Alpha Condé’s Rally of the Guinean People (RPG) have had relatively stable voter bases – since 2010 for the former and since 1993 for the latter – though the military coup of September 2021 appears to have dented the fortunes of both, particularly the RPG, whose leader was overthrown. Both the RPG and the party centered on former Prime Minister Sidya Touré (Union des Forces Républicaines UFR) were suspended in March 2025, allegedly for three months.
Party system
There is an average range of interest groups that reflect most social interests. These are represented through the so-called regional coordinations, which represent the country’s four “natural” geographic regions. Strong trade union organizations used to exist, especially representing general workers and in the banking and insurance and education sectors. These groups have shown the capacity to incorporate social interests and defend them against public authorities. Religious leaders – particularly the first imam of the grand mosque of Conakry and the archbishop of the Catholic Church in Conakry – wield significant moral authority that they sometimes use to mediate between the government and contesting sociopolitical forces in the country.
Interest groups
In the most recent Afrobarometer survey (2022), 67% of Guineans said they considered democracy to be the best form of government, 78% rejected dictatorship or one-party rule (77%), and an overwhelming majority (79%) said they were satisfied with the functioning of democracy in the country. However, just over half (54%) expressed satisfaction with the performance of the transitional president.
In June and July 2024, the Citizens’ Coalition for Elections and Governance (CoCEG) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI) in Guinea conducted a perception survey of about 195 citizens through 13 focus group discussions in all seven administrative regions of Guinea and the six communes of Conakry. In the report published in September of that year, most participants, including youths, women and vulnerable people, expressed satisfaction with the transitional authorities, citing government appointments and recruitment processes for the public civil service, as well as road infrastructure development projects. However, many voiced disappointment over violations of fundamental freedoms, as illustrated by the closure of private media outlets. They also expressed dismay at the lack of tangible progress in the transition process.
Approval of democracy
There is a saying in Guinea that “citizens are in advance of the state.” Guineans have proven resilient in the face of poor governance and the absence of the state in many sectors for many decades. In the process, they have developed means of coping in the absence of a state presence. People from a given village or zone, wherever they may be (including in the diaspora outside of Guinea), join hands to fund development projects in their village or zone, including the construction of and purchase of equipment for clinics and health centers, schools, mosques and other social services. This is mainly due to the high levels of trust they can deploy within localized spheres such as the family, village or neighborhood. The strategies of some political actors have introduced an element of ethnicization into party politics that most people deplore. However, most observers insist that ethnic cleavages tend to emerge only around election times and quickly diminish afterward. Indeed, despite heated political debates, people continue to maintain social and business relations beyond political cleavages. The fact that the overwhelming majority of Guineans (at least 80%) are Muslim means that the solidarity teachings and practices of Islam bind many across ethnic lines. In addition to social groups organized along villages, there are also regional groups represented by what are called regional coordination groups, which also, in the case of some regions, blend several ethnic groups. This is particularly true of the forest region of N’Zérékoré, the region with the most ethnic diversity in the country.
Social capital
Guinea is one of the poorest countries in the world, despite having the globe’s second-largest bauxite reserves and the world’s highest-grade iron ore reserves in Simandou, as well as substantial diamond and gold resources. The country has a small number of wealthy individuals, primarily businesspeople and corrupt government officials. Most Guineans live in poverty, with some experiencing abject poverty and lacking a viable source of income.
It was ranked 181st out of 193 countries and territories in the UNDP’s 2022 Human Development Index. The World Bank estimated the poverty rate in 2024 to be 49.9%. It is important to note that Guinea exhibits substantial regional heterogeneity with regard to poverty rates, with Labé presenting the highest rate (66% compared to 31% in Kankan), according to the Bank’s Poverty & Equity Brief of April 2023. The Bank’s 2024 World Development Indicators estimated Guinea’s Gini Index score in 2018 (latest data available) at 29.6, on a scale in which 100 denotes absolute inequality.
Guinea is highly unequal, not only along the rural-urban divide but also along gender lines. It scored 0.609 on the UNDP’s 2022 Gender Inequality Index, which ranges from 0.000 to 1.000, with lower values indicating less inequality. According to the UNDP’s 2022 measure of the loss of human development due to inequality, Guinea lost about 39.5% of potential longevity and health, education and living standards due to this cause.
Socioeconomic barriers
Guinea is nominally a liberal market economy. There are no significant official or legally sanctioned entry or exit barriers for product and factor markets, though at times the government restricts the export of some agricultural products to avoid creating a food crisis in the country, particularly in the run-up to and during the month of Ramadan. There is the freedom to launch and withdraw investments, including access to capital. Facilities exist to assist startups and small businesses, including tax waivers, but access to these is characterized by a lack of transparency and even corruption.
Despite the country’s official free market rules, some businesspeople exercise monopolies over certain sectors or products, often those which are imported. This sometimes comes at the expense of government support for local production of such products, including rice, the country’s main food. However, no legal rules back such monopolies. In fact, the 1994 law on competition and freedom of pricing (the “Competition Law”: L94/40/CTRN) prohibits monopolies and imposes sanctions against companies or traders found guilty of the provision. Monopoly practices are generally based on unofficial connections that traders establish with some government officials, especially in the customs administration.
Much of the country’s economic activity, including in the manufacturing sector, is informal. Agriculture is the primary economic sector, but primarily encompasses subsistence and informal farming. The exception is the mining sector. However, even mining is characterized by a bifurcation: Gold and diamonds are mostly mined artisanally, while a few companies such as AngloGold Ashanti and Société minière de Dinguiraye (SMD) operate some concessions in the Siguiri and Mandiana areas. Bauxite and iron ore extraction is largely formal due to the level of sophistication required. Market fluctuations typically determine the prices of goods other than petrol. Additionally, there is significant cross-border mobility of labor and capital, as seen in the artisanal gold mines around Siguiri.
The Dadis Camara (2009) and Alpha Condé (2011 – 2021) governments were accused of negotiating corrupt mining deals, leading to high-level corruption trials in the United States and Switzerland and – following the CNRD junta’s takeover in September 2021 – indictments in Guinea. Private sector actors complain that government officials and competitors often target the small formal sectors with spurious lawsuits. The banking sector has expanded and become more formalized over the past 20 years. Still, private sector businesses complain that it remains extremely difficult to access credit, particularly for small business owners who do not have a long track record of business successes or do not have enough collateral to guarantee bank loans. This makes interest rates very high for them and thus renders credit inaccessible in practice.
Market organization
Since the end of the first republic in Guinea in 1984, the country has maintained a relatively open market with little or no regulation of competition or prices. The few products or services whose prices are controlled by the state are petroleum products (fuel, gasoline, etc.) and public transport, as these are linked to fuel prices. In December 1994, Law No. L94/40/CTRN on competition and freedom of pricing (the “Competition Law”) was adopted, followed almost immediately by its implementing Decree No. D/94/119/PRG/SGG on December 28, 1994. These measures form the legal framework for competition in Guinea.
This competition law ostensibly prohibits monopolies – that is, any concerted actions, conventions, or tacit or express agreements that may result in preventing or limiting access to the market or restricting the free exercise of competition by other players – and includes sanctions for violators. Nonetheless, some sectors or products are monopolized by business cartels that hold dominant market positions. This allows them to engage in speculation and set predatory prices. It is clear that some actors do not hesitate to use all means, including corrupting government officials, to drive competitors out of the market. From time to time, the government holds meetings with business groups to agree on negotiated prices for certain products in exchange for reductions in taxes or customs clearance fees, or in response to the threat of increasing them.
The law does not contain any provisions relating to merger control. However, Guinea is a member of ECOWAS, which adopted an operational merger control regime in October 2024. While this regime is not yet fully in force – particularly in Guinea, given the country’s suspension from the regional bloc following the September 2021 military coup – merger activities in Guinea should be conducted with this regional competition regime in mind. This, along with the fact that many national business leaders are entering the market, offer reasons to expect better competition policy in the future.
Competition policy
Guinea is a World Trade Organization (WTO) member and operates a liberal market economy. Both the Guinean state and the country’s business people engage in trade with all countries through imports and exports. However, given Guinea’s modest production capacity, imports are more significant by volume. According to WTO data, the simple average of Guinea’s most-favored-nation applied tariff rates was 12% in 2023. In 2022, Guinea’s major trading partners for agricultural exports were India ($105 million), the European Union ($55 million), Indonesia ($29 million), Morocco ($22 million) and Malaysia ($10 million).
Concerning exports of nonagricultural products, the primary destination countries or regions in the same year were China (more than $4 billion), United Arab Emirates ($2.6 billion), India ($1.9 billion), the European Union (€560 million) and Switzerland (CHF 345 million), with the majority of these products being minerals. In terms of average tariffs on imports, the highest were imposed on beverages and tobacco (43.6%), live animals, coffee, tea, cocoa and spices, fruits and vegetables (40%), and the lowest on mechanical, office and computing machinery (5.2%), minerals and metals (5.9%), electrical machinery and electronic equipment (6.8%), and petroleum products (7.5%), with somewhat higher rates on transport equipment (14.5%), clothing (15%), chemicals (19.5%) and dairy products (28%).
While Guinean companies operate in the bauxite, iron ore, gold and diamond mining and services sectors, they primarily act as subcontractors for major foreign companies with significant capital and technological expertise. These are mainly Chinese (Chinalco and Shandong Weiqiao), Anglo-Australian (such as Rio Tinto), Russian (Rusal), French and American (ALCOA) multinational companies.
Regarding regular trade, there is a sizable Lebanese presence across market sectors, with some in this community having lived in the country for generations and naturalized as Guineans. In recent years, the Guinean trading sector has also seen the arrival of growing Indian and Chinese communities, sometimes rivaling Guinean businesspeople in petty trade activities.
Liberalization of foreign trade
Guinea’s banking sector is characterized by relative plurality, with a mix of about 21 African and non-African banks in 2024. The leading local banks are the Central Bank of Guinea, the National Bank of Guinea and the Guinean National Bank for Investment. Foreign banks include Société Générale, pan-African ECOBANK and United Bank of Africa (UBA), the Popular Moroccan-Guinean Bank (BPMG), Visa Bank, Orabank, and the Islamic Bank of Guinea. These institutions function with strong regulatory mechanisms, including measures against money laundering.
Guinean banks’ capital-to-assets ratio was estimated at 10.32% in 2022, significantly higher than the international median of 8.7%. This reflects the considerable risk of making loans in Guinea, with the share of non-performing loans hovering around 10% in recent years. As these numbers indicate, it is tough to get loans in the formal sector in Guinea, as interest rates are very high and collateral requests are stringent. This pushes many to rely on informal and personal loans that require full repayment after relatively short and fixed periods, reducing the amount that individuals can borrow and reducing business flexibility. Guinea has no stock market, and the country does not figure in the World Bank’s Bank Regulation and Supervision Survey.
Banking system
International financial institutions and private sector actors are generally satisfied with the junta’s monetary policy. The inflation rate has been relatively high over the last decade, but dropped under the junta from 12.6% in 2021 to 10.5% in 2022. It stood at 7.8% in 2023, the lowest since 2014, with an estimated increase to about 8.2% in 2024.
The government has allowed the exchange rate to float freely, but it has remained relatively stable over the last three years, with one U.S. dollar exchanged for approximately GNF 8,500 and one euro for GNF 10,000.
Monetary stability
Guinea’s primary fiscal challenge is its low internal tax revenues, and its consequently low ratio of tax revenues to GDP. According to the OECD’s Revenue Statistics in Africa 2024 publication, Guinea’s tax-to-GDP ratio in 2022 was 10.8%, lower than the average of the 36 African countries reviewed in the report, which was 16.0%.
In 2022, Guinea’s current account showed a positive balance of about $3.3 billion, down from $4.6 billion in 2021. This marked a significant change from the negative balances recorded between 2013 and 2019 (excluding 2017), and was above the $2.6 billion surplus seen in 2020. Total debt service amounted to roughly $238 million in 2022, while the general government’s final consumption expenditure was about $12.3 million in 2023.
A significant number of new bauxite mining operations and increased production from the country’s gold mines indicate that this trend should persist. Guinea’s overall public debt in 2023 and 2024 was around 42% of its GDP. External debt amounted to about 21% of GDP in 2023 and 2024 (about $4.9 billion).
Fiscal stability
Land tenure and titling are poorly regulated and highly contentious issues. Land is owned by individuals and communities. When up for development, part of this is ceded to the state. The law allows the government to expropriate any land for public interest and with due compensation to the owner, either in kind (through relocation) or with money. Because of poor regulation and a lack of comprehensive, computerized records of deeds and titles, some landowners may sell their plots to multiple buyers, who then end up facing off in court. Because of the cost of obtaining title deeds and the lack of state control, many landowners do not have title deeds for their land. This puts them at a disadvantage not only regarding the security of their land, but also when they want to seek bank loans for businesses, as banks require such certificates as collateral to guarantee a loan. This situation is especially prevalent in territories outside of Conakry, where only a minority of land parcels are associated with title deeds.
Some citizens, often with help from corrupt civil servants at the Ministry of Urbanization, have sought to sell state-owned land, including areas that constitute parts of future streets, falsely claiming ownership. Because of these practices, the CNRD junta has seized numerous buildings as part of an initiative to reclaim the national patrimony. This effort has faced criticism on two fronts: its apparent arbitrariness in some cases and occasional political motivations, as well as the ambiguity surrounding the status of some parcels.
Property rights
Private companies are permitted by law. Those in the formal sector, which are thus subject to Guinean laws and regulations, make up a relatively small portion of the economy. Those in the informal sector mostly manage incursions by state authorities by reaching negotiated understandings with them in an ad hoc manner. Most payments routed toward state institutions are actually captured by individuals. Protection of the private sector is thus a fluid and relative concept for most businesses, and the arrival of a new government – whether by coup or election – means reestablishing the personalized relations that allow all other activities to move forward. Businesses in the formal private sector complain that, although they pay the required taxes, customs and other costs, they are still beset by demands for the same suite of informal payments as their colleagues in the informal sector, effectively punishing them for operating in a more transparent way.
Under the regime of former President Alpha Condé, concessions and tax facilities were granted from 2014 to some Chinese, Turkish and Indian developers who invested in real estate projects, such as the well-regarded upmarket Diamond Plaza buildings in Kipé, Conakry, which were built for sale or rent by a Chinese company; the Kaloum and Sheraton hotels, respectively built and operated by Chinese and Indian companies; and the small Prima Center shopping mall, built and operated by a Turkish company.
Private enterprise
The social safety net in Guinea is weak. Spending on health rose from 0.3% of GDP in 2009 to 0.9% in 2019 but dropped to 0.8% in 2020 and to 0.7% in 2021, which is very low by international standards, including among countries with modest GDPs. There is no universal health insurance scheme, although government functionaries benefit from modest health coverage and many large companies provide health insurance to their employees. For those working in the formal sector – government and private sector companies – employers must register their employees with the National Fund for Social Security (CNSS). The official contribution to the CNSS is 23% of employee salary, regardless of salary level. Of this, 5% is deducted from the employee, and the employer contributes 18%. This supports employees’ pensions and compensation for maternity leave (up to 14 weeks). During maternity leave, the employer must pay the mother half her salary, while the other half is paid by the CNSS. There is no unemployment benefit.
Average life expectancy at birth was 63 years in 2024, placing Guinea among the 20 countries with the lowest life expectancies worldwide. Civil service employees receive small pensions after retirement. In the past, many were allowed to remain in the public housing where they had lived as government employees. However, recent land reclamation projects, amid widespread land speculation, mean that housing security is disappearing.
In rural areas, there is effectively no state-provided safety net. However, extended families care for their elderly and ill members informally.
Social safety nets
Education in public schools is free at the undergraduate university level. Each student of Guinean nationality attending a public university receives a monthly stipend to cover transportation costs. During the First Republic, university students were also provided free housing in government-built dormitories, but this benefit was gradually phased out in the 1990s.
There is social discrimination against women in the education sphere, where men are favored in many families over women, but this is not a legal or institutional policy. Thus, the literacy rate for men in Guinea was about 61.2% in 2021, double that of women (31.3%). In the ratio of female to male enrollment (GPI) in 2023, eight girls were enrolled in primary school for every 10 boys, but this dropped to 0.7% at the secondary level and 0.5% at the tertiary level. Guinea’s workforce participation rate among women has been stable since 2018, reaching 41% in 2023 according to World Bank data. The low literacy and education levels suggest that women face significant disadvantages in their work lives. Child marriages, which are sometimes arranged or forced marital unions, are common for girls living in rural areas.
Equal opportunity
Guinea’s GDP per capita rose from about $1,800 in adjusted dollars per year in 2015 to around $2,800 in 2021 and $4,429 in 2023. The mining sector has been the primary driver of this growth, with the number of bauxite mines quadrupling during this period, and with gold mining also seeing significant gains. However, most Guineans have not experienced the benefits of these GDP increases, as the wealth generated by the mining industry does not reach the majority of citizens. With mining accounting for over 90% of exports, Guinea’s economy needs diversification. The situation is a textbook example of the “Dutch disease” – in which the mining sector’s wealth hinders the development of other sectors, resulting in a net weakening of the economy rather than a net gain. According to the World Bank, the current account balance showed a surplus of $3.35 billion in 2022, though it has been volatile over the last decade.
In 2023, the inflation rate reached 7.8%, down from 10.5% the previous year and 12.6% in 2021. This has affected the purchasing power of ordinary citizens.
The unemployment rate stood at 5.3% in 2023, but so few people work in the formal sector that this number is almost meaningless. More importantly, the vast majority of people with a high school or university education are either unemployed or underemployed. Over the course of 2024, the government launched a recruitment drive that saw several hundred young people recruited into the public service and the defense and security forces.
While many of the country’s economic fundamentals (current account balance, public debt ratio and monetary policy) have remained stable even under the junta, the level of foreign direct investment is extremely low. Amounting to just 3.8% of GDP in 2023 – a strikingly low figure considering the capital-intensive nature of mining – it demonstrates how cautious foreign companies are when considering potential investments in the country.
Output strength
Guinea has several UNESCO biosphere reserves dating from the 1980s and 1990s, predominantly in the rainforest region in the southeast. Today, a primary concern is the significant harm being caused to human and ecological systems by major projects – notably mines and hydroelectric dams. The limited number of projects operating under the auspices of the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) or Guinea’s own Code Minier are required to adhere to strict social and environmental regulations.
Significant complaints have been raised about certain mines in the Boké and Kindia areas, where companies have at times declined to engage in further community discussions beyond the initial expropriation negotiations. The poisoning of water sources and the generation of massive amounts of dust that blankets everything are two persistent grievances related to bauxite areas.
Many observers contend that Guinea has sound laws backed by certain international actors, such as the IFC, but argue that these protections are enforced only in exceptional cases rather than as the norm.
Environmental policy
The quality of training in the educational curriculum has raised concerns among education sector stakeholders. Many university professors complain that their students do not arrive at university with the skills needed to thrive in a tertiary educational setting. Underfunded universities do not provide professors or students with the equipment, time and institutional structure necessary to pursue innovative research. Some manage productive research profiles despite numerous challenges, but these figures are in the minority.
Public spending on education hovers around 2% of GDP – one of the lowest such rates in Africa. The 2020 U.N. Education Index, which measures average educational attainment, ranked Guinea seventh from the bottom, among much poorer countries such as South Sudan, Chad and Niger.
The gross enrollment rate in 2021 was 98% at the primary school level, 36% at the secondary level and 6.7% at the tertiary level. The overall literacy rate was 53.9% in 2021. Secondary and primary school teachers frequently take on additional employment, including teaching in multiple schools, due to their low and unreliable pay. Public schools have high enrollment rates and limited resources. The insufficient availability of books and materials causes many students to progress through the education system without fully acquiring the necessary proficiency in literacy, mathematics and research skills.
There is no public data on R&D spending.
Education / R&D policy
Numerous structural constraints limit government performance in Guinea, and are difficult to overcome swiftly. These include extreme poverty; the lack of a sufficiently educated labor force; severe infrastructural deficiencies in areas such as roads, health care facilities, electricity and water supply; widespread corruption and its apparent societal normalization; and social considerations that influence leaders’ decisions. Overcoming these difficulties would require determined, legitimate and visionary leadership without populist characteristics, as well as considerable public education and firmness.
Structural constraints
Numerous civil society organizations in the country pursue various socioeconomic and political agendas. Many of these CSOs are members of one of two main umbrella organizations: the National Council of Civil Society Organizations of Guinea (CNOSCG) and the National Coalition of Guinean Civil Society Organizations (CONASOC). A third umbrella and thematic coalition is the Citizen Coalition for Elections and Governance in Guinea (Coalition citoyenne pour les élections et la gouvernance en Guinée, COCEG), which is composed of about 15 civil society organizations.
Over the past two decades or so, there has been a tradition of strong civil society involvement, even before Alpha Condé’s first tenure. Because civil society organizations tend to remind authorities of their responsibilities in various domains, governments often perceive them as leaning toward the opposition. This perception seems to have led governments to try to cooperate with members of CSOs or even support specific groups that could defend them within civil society.
One significant weakness in the country’s CSO landscape is the rarity of groups with substantial research divisions, which would enable them to base their advocacy work on hard evidence. Another weakness is the vulnerability of many civil society activists to government co-optation and the ease with which they tend to change dramatically once they take a government-adjacent role.
Since the military coup in September 2021 and the appointment of the then-chair (president) of CNOSCG, Dansa Kourouma, as speaker of the National Transitional Council (the transitional parliament), that group has been very weak in its advocacy work. Perhaps with advice from Kourouma, the CNRD has managed to co-opt several figures from civil society. Those who have remained critical, such as those associated with FNDC or the Social Forces of Guinea, have been targeted as oppositional figures. The assault in mid-February 2025 on Abdul Sacko, the coordinator of the Social Forces of Guinea, illustrates this reality.
Civil society traditions
Unlike some of its neighboring countries, such as Liberia, Sierra Leone and Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea has not experienced any major violent conflict, and none on a national scale (civil war) since its independence in 1958. However, there have been sporadic intercommunal confrontations in the N’Zérékoré region in southern Guinea, the latest having been seen during the March 2020 constitutional referendum.
There is a high level of political polarization, with most political parties associated with an ethnicity or a region. Thus, political confrontations, as seen during the presidential elections in 2010 and 2020, tend to take on ethnic dimensions, but these have typically been quickly controlled. However, they leave an impact on social cohesion. Religion has seldom been a factor in generating conflict. However, in the intercommunal conflicts in Southern Guinea, the religious dimension emerges because antagonistic groups tend to belong to different communities that, for the most part, are associated with various religions. While differences are pronounced, political actors have had only limited success in polarizing the population along existing cleavages. There have been few incidents of cleavage-related violence.
Conflict intensity
Most of the government’s projects and priorities in 2024 appeared to be geared toward maintaining the CNRD’s control over power. This was reflected in government appointments, including the special delegations that replaced elected mayors, as the heads of these bodies were reportedly vetted based on their perceived support for the CNRD’s continuing hold on power. Populist-tinged salary increases, the announcement of free health care coverage for singers and artists, and the distribution of money and expensive vehicles to people who distinguish themselves in their support for the CNRD all demonstrate this tendency.
In addition to the 10-point transition road map, there has been significant communication regarding a purported development program called Simandou 2040, focused on the Simandou iron ore reserves in the southeast of the country. However, no substantive program content has been publicly released, leading many analysts to believe this is more of a political slogan than an actual development policy or project.
Prioritization
Following the September 2021 coup, the government agreed with ECOWAS on a 10-point transition road map. All these points were supposed to be met by the end of 2024. None was fully achieved, suggesting that the government failed to implement this important set of commitments. Likewise, the government removed many people from buildings and other sites, some of which they had been occupying illegally. But the promise to rehabilitate these places, including road infrastructure, has not been fully honored, as many of these locations have either been left abandoned or have been repopulated.
The transitional authorities have arguably most clearly violated the promise to ensure justice and personal liberties.
Implementation
The government demonstrates little willingness to learn from policy experience in some respects. For example, the country experienced severe electricity crises beginning in late 2023, which led to discussions about possible effective measures. One palliative measure the previous regime adopted was to hire a Turkish powerboat to supplement electricity supplied by hydropower dams in the capital area. The transitional authorities reportedly found that option too costly, so they terminated the contract. However, given the crisis of 2023, they returned to the same Turkish company to address the situation in 2024. Still, this is not a viable long-term policy option.
Likewise, Conakry is very dirty, and successive governments have failed to implement an effective garbage collection and processing system in the capital or in other major urban centers. The transitional authorities do not appear to have made any innovations in this area, as they continue to organize collective garbage collection days one Saturday each month, which seems to be a populist policy.
Policy learning
The government uses only some available human, financial and organizational resources efficiently. Apart from ministers and other high-level officials, most public servants do not have personalized job descriptions for their specific roles. New civil servants are generally recruited in waves and are seldom hired for particular roles or based on precise job descriptions. This often results in numerous public servants being described as “non postés” – recruited but not yet assigned. These individuals receive a salary and may go to a specific ministerial department without a particular role.
Transparency is needed in the management of the public finances, and independent audits are rare.
Certain activities undertaken by state authorities serve mainly to expend state funds but accrue little value in return. For example, to draft the new constitution – one of the 10 points of the transitional road map – members of the National Transitional Council (CNT) were deployed across the country to solicit citizens’ views. Upon their return to Conakry, they organized two major constitutional review conferences and symposia in 2023 to receive expert views and submissions from various sociopolitical actors in the country. All of this was costly. Yet after completing the initial draft in July 2024, members of the CNT were once again deployed across the country, supposedly to disseminate the draft and collect citizens’ views. However, the organization of these dissemination forums made it difficult to obtain meaningful input from citizens, as they had not received a copy of the document in advance, and the process was not interactive enough. This consultation function could have been assigned to special delegations in all parts of the country and could have been carried out in parallel in one week at less cost compared to the three-week trips undertaken by members of the CNT.
Likewise, the provision of state support for pro-CNRD movements has led to the allocation of significant funds from public coffers.
Efficient use of assets
As a military regime, the government attempts to coordinate conflicting objectives. When necessary, the president and his close entourage within the CNRD make decisions and expect stakeholders to comply. Otherwise, sanctions can be swift, and can include arrest and imprisonment.
For example, given the importance of the mining sector and the exploitation of the Simandou iron ore mines, the CNRD has established a “Strategic Committee for the Follow-up of the Simandou Project” (Comité stratégique pour le suivi du projet Simandou) within the presidency under Djiba Diakité, the minister-director of cabinet for the transitional president. All discussions with the consortium of mining companies involved in this project are led by this committee, which coordinates all government input in this regard, including from the ministry of mines.
Politically, the civilian prime minister, who since February 2024 has been Amadou Oury Bah, is supposed to coordinate government actions as well as relations with political parties and social forces. His predecessor, Bernard Gomou (2023), oversaw the organization of the national dialogue in the country. When trade union organizations or political parties complain, it is generally the prime minister’s office that is initially tasked with dealing with their grievances. The prime minister also serves as a link with the international community, though the foreign minister often appears to have a closer relationship with the transitional leader. However, on certain strategic issues, including those of a political nature and anything related to the military, it is the minister secretary-general of the presidency, Gen. Amara Camara, who takes the lead. This sometimes causes clashes with the prime minister, in which case Camara’s position is paramount. This official – because the prime minister’s role in mediating with social forces is official – and unofficial division of labor seems to be one means of coordinating conflicting objectives.
Policy coordination
There are anti-corruption mechanisms in the country, including the Court for the Repression of Economic and Financial Crimes (CRIEF), the Cour des comptes and the National Cell for the Processing of Financial Information (Cellule nationale de traitement des informations financières, CNTEF).
Some high-level officials have been fired, arrested and tried on corruption charges. In December, the director-general of customs and 11 colleagues, the director-general of revenues and the director-general of the Guinean publicity office were all arrested on corruption charges and jailed. The trials were pending as of the time of writing.
This notwithstanding, no government official, starting with the transitional president, has made a public asset declaration, and several have lifestyles that might be hard to justify based on their lawful income.
Party financing is regulated, but compliance has been minimal, except for an evaluation of political parties conducted by the Ministry of Territorial Administration in July 2024.
With the closure of the three main private media outlets in early 2024 and the censorship in place since then, no independent journalist has sought to investigate officeholders’ financial management practices.
Anti-corruption policy
With regard to governance, one can argue that there are divergent interpretations in the country, particularly regarding what constitutes democracy and what it represents. Citing countries such as Rwanda, Singapore and China as examples, some actors especially within the CNRD and its base of supporters often claim that democracy “has not worked” in the country, and that the government therefore needs only to be a purely “developmental” state. In his address to the 2023 U.N. General Assembly and to the nation in December of the same year, the transitional president explained his vision and priorities, arguing that economic development should take precedence over political governance. He also argued that democracy is a foreign practice imposed on Africans since the early 1990s. Confusing democracy with how individuals have practiced it – even in violation of its principles – many Guineans tend to follow this line of reasoning, citing the former president, Alpha Condé, as an illustration of the “failure of democracy.” Some political actors have criticized this reasoning, but it is unclear whether they have done so because of their opposition to the CNRD or because of a genuine conviction and belief in the ethos of democracy.
On the economic front, there appears to be consensus among most political actors regarding the value of a liberal market economy. However, some believe the state should play an important role, and reference the period of the Sékou Touré regime (1958 – 1984), which featured a state-driven economy. Those nostalgic for this era emphasize the economic infrastructure created, such as processing factories, rather than the state’s control of the economy.
A key debate in this context is whether Guinea should continue to rely on exploiting and exporting natural resources such as bauxite and iron ore, or whether the government should make deliberate efforts to ensure at least minimal processing of these resources within the country before export. Additionally, there is an ongoing question of whether the foundation of the country’s economy should remain focused on mineral resources, shift to agriculture or emphasize both sectors simultaneously.
Consensus on goals
The military regime’s actions on the ground, particularly during 2024, indicate widespread anti-democratic posturing by the top leadership. Reformist and moderate voices tend not to influence the hardliners. This has been seen in a number of anti-democratic actions taken by the authorities since mid-2023, including the systematic ban on political protests; the jamming and eventual closure of private media outlets; the arrest and incarceration of journalists and critical political actors; and the passage of the transition deadline on December 31, 2024, without reformers having managed to convince the top leadership to open the political space for dialogue with political actors in order to ensure a more consensual management of the remaining transition period.
Anti-democratic actors
Since 2023, the CNRD’s political leadership has not attempted to moderate cleavages. Instead, it has tried to divide the political class, co-opting some and dealing with political opponents with brutal force. It shows signs of lenience when tensions rise, but only until the turbulence passes.
Cleavage / conflict management
At the start of the transition, in September 2021, the CNRD held extensive consultations with civil society groups and various sociopolitical forces. It organized national consultations in 2022 called “assizes nationales,” and sponsored a national dialogue in 2023. Some major political actors boycotted this latter initiative. As the new constitution was being drafted, extensive consultations were held with civil society and other actors. Moreover, the CNT is chaired by a former president of one of the two prominent civil society umbrella groups, the National Council of Civil Society Organizations in Guinea.
Public consultation
Since the start of the CNRD transition, two significant events have been organized to contribute to national reconciliation.
The first of these events was the series of national consultation events called “assizes nationales,” which involved the organization of hearings with Guineans from different walks of life over several weeks beginning in March 2022. The first imam of the grand mosque of Conakry, Elhadj Mamadou Saliou Camara, and the archbishop of the Catholic Church in Conakry, Vincent Coulibaly, led the process, with significant financial and technical support from the U.N. country team, particularly the office of the resident coordinator. The report deriving from these consultations was handed over to the transitional president in August 2022.
The second event was the prosecution of the alleged perpetrators of the large-scale massacre at a football stadium in September 2009. This trial, which began in 2022, ended with a verdict rendered at the end of July 2024. After reclassifying some of the alleged crimes as crimes against humanity, the judges sentenced the main accused to heavy prison terms ranging from 10 years for Aboubacar “Toumba” Diakité to 20 years for Moussa Dadis Camara and Moussa “Tiebgboro” Camara. The judges also ruled on reparation claims, awarding between 200 million and 1 billion Guinean francs (approximately $23,000 to $115,000) to various groups of victims, who greeted the verdict as historic.
However, the fact that some actions by the current transitional authorities have also been deemed serious crimes by human rights organizations leads some people to doubt whether these events will have a lasting impact on national reconciliation in the country.
Reconciliation
As this is a military-led transition period, development plans have largely been oriented toward the short term. In early 2022, the transitional authorities adopted a transitional development plan for the 2022 – 2025 period called Programme de référence intérimaire de la transition (PRI): 2022 – 2025. However, in 2024, the government began actively promoting a 15-year development plan called Simandou 2040. While this may appear to refer to the iron ore mining project at Simandou, government officials argue that it is a broader development plan that could benefit from the proceeds of the Simandou project, but is not solely focused on this.
There is not sufficient consolidated data available to assess the volume or even the nature of all international assistance received by the political leadership, or to analyze its use by the authoritarian authorities. However, developments on the ground suggest that the political leadership uses many locally mobilized resources and some foreign technical assistance for short-term expediencies, or to enable rent-seeking in support of the CNRD leadership’s continued hold on power. This has been most apparent since August 2024, when pro-CNRD movements (mouvements de soutien) proliferated across the country, organizing sporting events in honor of the transitional president and displaying large posters of him, with substantial financial support from government officials.
Effective use of support
As the current leadership came to power through a military coup, Guinea has been suspended from the decision-making organs of the African Union, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the International Organization of the Francophonie (OIF). The U.S. government also suspended Guinea from the African Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA). This has limited Guinea’s engagement with these organizations. However, the OIF ultimately lifted its suspension and reintegrated Guinea in September 2024. ECOWAS, following its July 2024 summit, relaxed its sanctions on the country by allowing it – along with other countries in transition – to attend technical meetings and those of the community parliament.
On the investment front, the government has maintained strong relations with various investors, particularly in the mining sector. The launch of operations at the Simandou iron ore mine by a consortium of Australian, British, Chinese and Singaporean companies in 2023 highlights this dynamic.
The government has faced numerous criticisms from the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva for what the council considers to be the transitional authorities’ poor human rights record, including the arrest and disappearance of activists and other political actors, the banning of public protests, and the closure of independent media outlets.
The government agreed with ECOWAS on a transition period that was to end on December 31, 2024, but this was not respected.
Credibility
The political leadership actively seeks to maintain good relations with all neighboring countries. For example, the transitional president attended the inauguration ceremony of the newly elected president of Senegal in April 2024. Thanks to good relations with Liberia, the Guinean authorities managed to have Col. Claude Pivi, who escaped from Guinea’s central prison in November 2023 and went into hiding in Liberia, extradited in September 2024. However, the enthusiastic cooperation that existed between the military leaderships in Guinea and Mali in 2022 and 2023 waned in 2024, most likely because of the very violent and public anti-French stance of Mali’s leadership, while Guinea’s transitional president – who is married to a serving French gendarme – is close to France.
As noted above, the transitional government has not complied with rules set by regional organizations. For example, it openly and officially opposed ECOWAS sanctions against both Mali (2022) and Niger (2023), and has not respected the transition timeline agreed with ECOWAS following the 2021 coup.
Regional cooperation
During 2024, Guinea continued to face numerous challenges. The most significant of these was the CNRD regime’s silencing of all critical voices by jailing them or forcing them into exile. The government faced almost no checks or balances, and thus constituted a law unto itself. The transition timeline agreed with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and accepted by sociopolitical forces in the country ended in December 2024 without a single point of the transition road map having been fully achieved. The early applause that greeted the junta in 2021 has devolved into disappointment and criticism.
The region is also home to three other military-led transitional governments in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger that have cut ties with ECOWAS and various external partners. This has made ECOWAS and bilateral partners more accommodating of Guinea, possibly out of concern about pushing it to extremes. These factors – apparent control on the home front and the indulgence of external actors – have seemed to give the Guinean regime the impression that it can do whatever it wants.
Perhaps this underlies the delay in implementing the activities of the transition road map, as well as the widely perceived intention of the CNRD to maintain power. This is expected to take place via Mamady Doumbouya’s eventual candidacy in the upcoming elections, although as of the time of writing, Doumbouya had not yet made any official statements as to his intentions. Some members of his inner circle may be pushing him to take on this role in pursuit of their own interests, as they would continue to benefit from the perks of power under his leadership.
If Doumbouya eventually runs in the future elections, he will likely want to win at all costs, including using force to rig the polls. There would be significant risks to this plan. First, citizens and opposition forces who now view CNRD rule as “dictatorial” might see this as opening a pathway back to the country’s worst moments and try at least to protest, which could invite brutal state repression with incalculable consequences. The other risk relates to internal dynamics within the armed forces. Since many military officers have come to regard this kind of action as “forbidden,” it could inspire some ambitious figures to attempt a new coup governed by a logic of “why him and not us” – especially as some see the “special forces” to which Doumbouya belongs as an “appendix” that is undermining the conventional army. Even if they do not act in this way, it could open the door to a cycle of instability in the country.
Doumbouya and those close to him would be well advised to learn from the experiences of Dadis Camara and Alpha Condé. Camara was a powerful military leader in 2009 who attempted what Doumbouya is reportedly trying now, but his actions led to significant consequences, including being tried and sentenced to several years in jail for something he was likely pushed to do by members of his entourage. Condé pursued a controversial third term in 2020, believing he had suppressed the opposition and secured his position with the special forces. Yet, he ultimately fell into the trap he set for himself.
International actors should use back-channel diplomacy to alert Doumbouya to these risks and highlight the advantages of honoring his initial promise to organize credible elections and hand over power to an elected civilian leader in 2025. These advantages include the positive image he would create among the Guinean people and the many opportunities he could pursue after leaving power in an honorable manner, including on the international stage. If he is concerned about restoring the status quo ante, he could instead help foster favorable conditions for a new generation of political leaders who could bring about a paradigm shift in Guinea’s governance.