In the final years of last century, there has been a renewed interest for Congo DR by the mining industry. Many companies contacted the RMCA to obtain geological and mining information. Faced with this increased demand, the RMCA decided to create metadata bases of its documentation. These soon showed their usefulness.

Furthermore, several Congolese institutions had the same type of information and received requests from the same companies. These were the Centre de Recherches Géologiques et Minières (CRGM) , the University of Lubumbashi (UNILU), the Générale des Carrières et des Mines (GCM), the Minière de Bakwanga (MIBA), the Cellule Technique de Coordination et Planification Minière (CTCPM), the Compagnie des Hydrocarbures du Congo (COHYDRO) and the CAMI, Cadastre Minier.

This increased interest by these companies, convinced these institutes to participate in a project entitled :

"Creation in DRC and Belgium of a network of geological and mining databases concerning the Congo - CONSTITUTION EN RDC ET EN BELGIQUE D'UN RESEAU DE BANQUES DE DONNEES GEOLOGIQUES ET MINIERES SUR LE CONGO".

a project that deals with various aspects of this rich documentation and covers following topics :

• Geological and Mining archives
• Maps, aerial photos, satellite images and mosaics
• Books and other library materials.

The project was funded primarily by the Belgian General Directorate of International Cooperation. It was also partly co-funded by RMCA and the Congolese institutions involved in the project. (It should be noted that for various reasons, MIBA, CMG and COHYDRO are no longer referenced on the site).

Databases and information concerning the participating institutions are now accessible on this site. In the geological and mining archives, more than 20.000 holdings have been recorded; which show the potential usefulness of this site.

The metadata are managed by each institute and the site is periodically updated. The last update was done in December 2012.