UNDP: New development strategies adopted in Cameroon

UNDP is carrying out a midterm review of the 2013-2017 development projects in Cameroon.

The Country Programme Action Plan, CPAP of the United Nations Development Programme, UNDP, is under review. The 30 million-US-dollar project (about FCFA 17.8 billion) spans from 2013 to 2017.

The programme was approved by an agreement between the government of Cameroon and the United Nations Systems in Cameroon on March 27, 2012. It is designed to improve social group participation in cases of vulnerability by integrating the concerns of gender and transversal dimensions of persons as well as strengthen the resilience of people affected by climate change.

The plan is also intended to reconcile civil servants and public service users by ensuring a sustainable and customer-friendly service delivery alongside the improvement of access to basic socio-economic services.

UNDP has since the start of the project in 2013 been working with the Ministry of Small and Medium-size Enterprises, Social Economy and Handicraft, the Ministry of Youth and Civic Education, the Ministry of Environment, Sustainable Development and Protection of Nature, as well as the Ministry of Finance and that of Public Service and Administrative Reforms, with the Ministry of the Economy, Planning and Regional Development supervising.

Councils in the East, North and Far North Regions are beneficiaries of the project. Reports so far are positive; with Zaija Adibe Bana Ali, the First Deputy Mayor of Maga Council in the Mayo Danay Division of the Far North, attesting. Over 38 cooperatives in his Council received an interest-free loan of FCFA 47 million and their story has since changed with warehouses now full of crops. The first funding succeeded at 97 per cent.

The Council area has also benefitted from a second funding of FCFA 72 million for rice and sorghum production. The lives of millions of people have been impacted by UNDP’s Country Programme Action Plan, Mayor Bana Ali disclosed.

Designed to align with Cameroon’s Growth and Employment Strategy Paper, the implementation of CPAP has faced the same security challenges Cameroon is currently battling with. The project was conceived before the Boko Haram insurgency in the Far North and attacks in the East Region from Central African rebels where refugees have flocked in.

This therefore calls for a rethink of the implementation - a daunting task that was top on the agenda during the traditional midterm review of UNDP programmes that started in Ebolowa, South Region on July 27, 2015. The Deputy Resident Representative of UNDP, Corneille Agosso, announced the adoption of a new strategy plan to redefine areas of assistance.

“We have to adjust our intervention in Cameroon to the strategy document,” Agosso said, revealing that UNDP will next year embrace new international aid as part of the Post-2015 Development Agenda, with emphasis on sustainable development.