Gov't, World Bank Restructure Value Chain Project

An emergency plan to make the project visible and augment credit consumption is underway.

The government of Cameroon and the World Bank Group are in the process of restructuring the over 30 million US dollar (about 15.3 billion) value chain project which they are jointly funding to render Cameroon's economy more competitive. The project in the wood and tourism sectors is part of a wide-range of programmes which also include the 26 million U.S dollar (about 13.3 billion) Central African Backbone project to boost telecommunications in the country and agriculture with the agricultural competitive support programme (PACA).

The funding is through loans via the World Bank's International Development Association (IDA) established in 1960, through which help is given to the world's poorest countries by providing loans and grants for projects and programmes that boost economic growth, reduce poverty, and improve poor people's lives.

According to the National Coordinator of the value chain project, Soua Ntyam Evelyne Françoise, the results obtained thus far are not satisfactory and so there is need to review the project to attain desired objectives. This mostly concerns the wood and tourism sectors. With its 20 million hectares of forest, Cameroon is reportedly second to the Democratic Republic of Congo and counts well over 300 wood species in its thick and vast forests. A government-World Bank project drafted to solve the problem of local processing that has kept the sector at infancy is said to be suffering from some organisational lapses. The same problem holds for the tourism sector where the country also disposes unmatched potentials.

Stakeholders say there is need to carry out in-depth feasibility studies on the projects as well as take into consideration the timeframe needed in the public contracts code to draft a project; launch calls for tenders, award the contract and get the project implemented. Certainly with evolutions, a lot has to be readjusted in the project plan and a new execution calendar established by the two parties so that the projects do not perish or hurriedly executed as not to meet the aspirations of the donors and the needs of the targeted population.

Restructuring documents are said to have been prepared by government and are being studied by the technical authorities of the World Bank before forwarding to the Board of Directors for appraisal and final decision. The emergency activity plan would accelerate the putting in place of the project, make visible its fruit and improve credit consumption, all hitches that have been identified for slowing the project thus far.