The major river ports are the ports of Ilebo, Kisangani, Mbandaka, Bumba, Ubundu, Kindu, and Kinshasa. The major lake ports include the ports of Kalemie, Kalundu, and Mushimbakye in Baraka. Built during the colonial era and not upgraded since, almost all of these ports operate at low efficiency, and some are no longer functional at all, such as the Port of Bumba or that of Mushimbakye.

The low performance of these ports is explained both by the poor state of the waterways: 9,000 km are not marked and 7,238 km are only partially marked, making almost 80% of the river network impassable, and by the dilapidation and the shutdown of almost all the boats that served them.

The main river project involves the deployment of ferries to facilitate the crossing between the DRC and the Central African Republic, separated by the Oubangui River.

The Congolese government will also relaunch urban river transport services in Kinshasa. The initiative is part of a series of measures planned to alleviate the hardships caused by heavy traffic congestion in the Congolese capital.

The President of the Republic, Félix Tshisekedi, wishes to rethink the strategy of the Congolese Maritime Line by providing it, in particular, with efficient and suitable vessels to enable it to play its natural role of arming the State, based on the observation that this public company has to date gone more than two decades without having its own fleet.

A recovery plan should focus, in particular, on the floating units to be rehabilitated in the existing parks, but also on revaluing local industry, including the SCTP and Chanimétal shipyards for the construction of new units according to relevant standards, in order to serve both the river and its tributaries.

At the same time, since 2020, the DRC has decided to close the illegal private ports that are proliferating across the country. In addition to regulation, these ports generate enormous losses for the Société commerciale des Transports et Ports (SCTP), a state-owned entity that should, in principle, handle 90% of Congolese maritime freight.

The rebirth of the Kinshasa-Brazzaville bridge 

On June 22, 2022, the Minister of Planning, Christian Mwando Nsimba Kabulo, and his counterpart from the Republic of Congo, in charge of Planning, Territorial Equipment and Major Works, Jean-Jacques Bouya, signed a call for expressions of interest for an international call for tenders to select a partner for the project to finance, build and operate the road-rail bridge over the Congo River between Kinshasa and Brazzaville, a major infrastructure project on Africa's second-longest river, linking the two closest capitals in the world. Traffic is expected to increase to more than three million people and two million tons of freight by 2025. 

With an estimated population of around 15 million, the city of Kinshasa faces significant challenges related to its demographic, economic, social and infrastructure development, including housing, transportation, and many other areas. Thus, since August 2015, the city of Kinshasa has had a general planning document called the Strategic Orientation Scheme for the Kinshasa Agglomeration (SOSAK), along with a specific development plan for the North PPA Zone.