<p>This paper studies spatiotemporal evolution of meteorological drought at seasonal and annual scales in Central-Africa over the past seven decades. Datasets from observation stations and from the Global Precipitation Climatology Centre (GPCC) and the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) were used. They were aggregated at 3- and 12-month time scales (TSs) and four distribution functions were tested at each grid point to select the best-fit for the computation of Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) used as drought indicator. The four drought categories (mild, moderate, severe and extreme) were studied and t-test at 95% confidence level was applied on the trends. As results, GPCC data over the period 1950–2019 were found to be the most appropriate for the study. Pattern of the annual precipitation cycle changes with the area. SPIs computed from GPCC data are consistent with the observations and generally show significant tendencies to dry conditions in the whole domain on an annual scale, above <InlineEquation ID="IEq1"> <EquationSource Format="TEX">\(5^{\circ }\)</EquationSource> </InlineEquation>N (zone 1) during the season June-July-August (JJA) and below this latitude (other zones) for the other seasons. The more rainy an area is, the greater the severity of the predominant drought and conversely, the less rainy an area is, the less severe the predominant drought. Thus the wettest areas were mostly affected in space and time by severe and extreme droughts while in the driest areas, mild drought prevailed and no extremes were generally recorded. The study of trends in the spatial extent of different drought categories significantly showed in most areas a slight increase of mild drought and a slight decrease of other drought categories. Drought signals detected in this study represent a threat to the forests of the Congo Basin which largely contribute to climate change mitigation as the second largest carbon sink in the world.</p>