Fuck Resilience

By Sidonie Latere*

What if resilience was no longer a quality, but a weakness?

Resilience is often celebrated as an essential quality of African peoples. It embodies the ability to endure adversity, to keep going despite hardships, to survive in the face of injustice. But in 2025, can we still glorify this resilience without questioning its harmful effects? What if, instead of being a source of hope, it had become a silent warning we have ignored for too long?

Resilience that hides structural failures

In the DRC, as in many other African countries, resilience has become an empty catchword. It hides the failures of our institutions, the inaction of our leaders, and the inefficiency of our systems. We have become used to compensating for the absence of the State. We have learned to live without electricity, to walk kilometers to find water, to give birth without proper medical care, to educate our children in overcrowded classrooms.

Let’s take a concrete example: sanitation infrastructure. Today, about 46 million Congolese use unsafe or shared latrines, while 6.7 million people simply have no access to latrines at all. This situation has dramatic health consequences. Every year, thousands of people, especially children, die from waterborne diseases like cholera or typhoid. According to a study by the Water and Sanitation Program (WSP), the DRC loses about 208 million dollars each year due to the lack of sanitation infrastructure. This figure reflects not only an economic loss but also a direct assault on our collective dignity. And yet, we continue to adapt. To show resilience. Again and again.

Electricity is another striking example. In many cities and villages, power cuts are a daily occurrence. People organize themselves, invest in generators, or live in darkness. Their ability to « make do » is praised, when in reality it stems from infrastructure failure and political negligence.

At the beginning of April, my city, Kinshasa, was hit by torrential rains that lasted several days. The consequences were devastating: roads cut off, houses engulfed, entire families left homeless, sleeping in their cars or on rooftops. Many lost their belongings, and there were numerous fatalities. This disaster could have been mitigated with proper infrastructure and preventive measures, but once again, we had to be resilient.

I won’t even mention the situation in the East of the country and its millions of deaths. Our hearts bleed and yet we are asked to continue being resilient.

Turning resilience into demand

It is time to change our collective narrative. We no longer want to be seen as peoples who « know how to survive against all odds. » We want to be recognized as peoples who refuse to survive in indignity, and who demand to live in dignity, efficiency, and innovation.

Our resilience must become a force for transformation. It must fuel our constructive anger, our demand for results, our thirst for reform. It must no longer be celebrated as an end in itself, but used as an alarm bell.

Let’s stop adapting – Let’s build!

We no longer want just to adapt. We want to build. Build solid systems, trustworthy institutions, competent and committed teams.

It is time to recognize that this much-vaunted « resilience » has become a warning. A veiled confession of our structural weaknesses. And like any warning, it must neither be celebrated nor ignored. It must shake us, wake us up.

We want to build for our children and for future generations. And for that, it is essential to become more demanding of those who govern our countries.

The future is not something we endure; it is something we build.
 Fuck resilience!

*Sidonie Latere is the founder and CEO of Kobo Hub.