ASCENDANCE INTELLIGENCE | EXPLAINER
What Is the Joint Steering Committee (JSC)?
Five Americans, five Congolese, and the room where every decision under the SPA actually gets made.
The treaty has reserves, corridors, and a twenty-year clock. None of them move on their own. Ten people decide when they do. The Joint Steering Committee is the body that runs the US-DRC Strategic Partnership Agreement, and almost every mechanism in the agreement passes through it.
The Joint Steering Committee (JSC) is the primary implementation body of the SPA, created under Article VI. It is made up of five US officials and five Congolese officials, meets at least twice a year, and decides by consensus. It oversees the Strategic Asset Reserve, qualifying projects, offtake allocation, and the reform agenda. When the agreement requires a decision, a notification, or a review, the JSC is usually where it happens.
Key takeaways
- The JSC is the SPA’s engine: five US plus five DRC officials, meeting at least twice a year, deciding by consensus.
- It is the Joint Steering Committee, not a “council.” The distinction matters because the body steers implementation rather than setting policy above the two governments.
- It oversees the asset reserve, qualifying projects, offtake guidelines, and the fiscal reform review.
- Consensus is the rule, so neither side can be outvoted. A deadlock is escalated to senior officials, not decided by majority.
- It is where the agreement turns from text into action, which makes its composition and its decisions worth watching closely.
Who sits on it?
Ten officials, split evenly. The US side draws from the Departments of State, Treasury, and Commerce, the Development Finance Corporation, and one additional agency. The Congolese side draws from Foreign Affairs, the National Economy, Finance, Planning, and the Office of the President. It is co-chaired by the US Department of State and the most senior Congolese minister on the committee. The first members were to be named within fifteen days of the agreement taking effect, and the first meeting held within ninety days.
The even split is the point. The committee is built so that neither government holds a structural majority over the other.
What does it actually do?
It runs implementation across the agreement. The JSC discusses investment in reserve projects, qualifying projects, and the Congo’s designated strategic projects. It reviews compliance and oversight of the agreement. It develops the offtake guidelines that determine how reserve production is allocated toward the US market. It coordinates technical cooperation on legal and regulatory reform. And it reviews ownership changes in reserve projects and qualifying projects.
It also carries specific recurring duties on a calendar. Starting eighteen months after the agreement took effect, it reviews reserve projects that have attracted no active proposals, and it reviews the Congo’s progress on the fiscal incentives every year. The committee is not a launch event. It is a standing process with a schedule.
How does it make decisions?
By consensus, which is the most consequential design choice in the whole body. Because both sides must agree, neither can be outvoted by the other. That protects the Congo from being steamrolled and protects the US from a Congolese majority, but it also means a genuine disagreement does not get resolved inside the committee. When the two sides cannot reach consensus, the matter is escalated to more senior officials on both sides rather than forced through. Consensus makes the JSC a negotiating table, not a voting chamber.
Why the JSC is the body to watch
Because it sits at the center of everything else. A reserve asset cannot open to investment without a JSC notification. An ownership change in a qualifying project is reviewed here. The offtake guidelines that decide where Congolese minerals flow are written here. The fiscal reforms are reviewed here. If you want to know whether the SPA is being implemented or stalling, the JSC’s meetings and decisions are the clearest signal available, clearer than any single transaction, because every transaction depends on this room. What the committee has decided, and when it last met, changes over time and is tracked in our ongoing analysis.
The bottom line
The JSC is where the agreement stops being a set of rules and becomes a series of decisions. Its consensus design means progress requires both governments to keep choosing it, meeting after meeting. The mechanisms get the attention. The committee is what makes them run, or lets them stall.
Sources: US-DRC Strategic Partnership Agreement, Article VI, with Articles VII and XII, signed Washington, December 4, 2025. Last reviewed: June 2026.
Washington. Paris. Kinshasa.