Kumba-Mamfe Road administrators learn labour intensive approach

They received technical skills recently in Kumba on economic development and road maintenance.

Some Local Administrators from Meme, Fako and Manyu Divisions have been trained on how to integrate labour intensive approach in economic and local development in their area, especially in the area of road maintenance. They gained their skills during a four-day training seminar that took place in Kumba, from the 12th to the 16th of January 2015.

It was organised by the International Labour Organization, IO, Decent Work Technical Support Team for Central Africa and Country Office for Cameroon. It took place on the theme; “Integration of Labour Intensive Approach in the Economic and Local Development”, the case of road maintenance.

The seminar had as objectives to raise awareness and to develop within local government, integration capabilities of HIMO techniques and approaches to solve the problems of post-rehabilitation road maintenance and foster capacity building among other administrations and management of road maintenance contracts.

This will be through planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of labour intensive road maintenance network. The over 30 participants upgraded skills on the overview of the Kumba–Mamfe road project.

Emphasis was on understanding issues of general contract management. According to the Project Coordinator of African Development Bank, ADB, Zanga Maturin, who doubled as one of the facilitators, the objective of the Kumba-Mamfe road project, is to contribute to economic growth by improving the competitiveness of the port of Douala.

It strives to connect Cameroon with Nigeria through roads, improve on the livelihood of the people of the South West Region in particular and Cameroon at large. It seeks to connect the South West and North West Regions.

Mr. Zanga Maturin explained that the Kumba-Mamfe road development project funded by the African Development Bank, consists of the rehabilitation in bituminous concrete of 150.86 km of main road and the rehabilitation of 118 km of rural tracks of agricultural service, and other infrastructure of medium and small scope.

The National Project Coordinator of the Kumba-Mamfe Road Project, Simon Bernard Tourm, explained that, in order to strengthen youth employment in Cameroon and Africa in general, the International Labour Organization adopted a decent work agenda for Africa from 2007-2015.