Ambassador Serge Mombouli, the longest-serving African envoy to the United States, representing the Republic of Congo, died in Washington on Sept. 5 following an illness. He was 66.

Born the son of a diplomat in the Congolese city of Pointe-Noire in 1959, Mombouli earned a degree in corporate law from the National Conservatory of Arts and Professions in Paris. He began his career in the private sector, working in the corporate sales division of Air Afrique in Paris and was vice president of the A.W.E. Group in Houston, Texas.

In 1995, he became vice president of international operations and project development at Transworld Consortium Corporation, also based in Houston.

Mombouli’s tenure in Washington began in 1997, when he was appointed the Republic of Congo’s chargé d’affaires, and took over the role of ambassador to the US in July 2001. In 2015, he became the dean of the African diplomatic corps in Washington following the death of his colleague, Ambassador Roble Olhaye, of Djibouti.

An expert in corporate law and business negotations, Mombouli was committed to strengthening friendship and diplomatic cooperation between the US and Congo in areas of governance, international development and foreign investment.

In a famous interview with NPR’s All Things Considered in 2007, he said, “Tangible development means you can see, you can touch. We need both. We cannot be talking just about democracy, transparency, good governance. At the end of the day the population does not have anything to eat, does not have water to drink, no electricity at night, industry to provide work, so we need both. People do not eat democracy.” 

Ambassador Mombouli is succeeded by his wife and six children.