PPPP launches strategy to meet cocoa, coffee production target

The first plenary body session of public-private cooperation was held in Douala on Friday. During this session, participants were given guidance culled from the that given to producer countries at the first world conference on cocoa in Abidjan in Côte d'Ivoire in November 2012, in order to synchronize actions to promote the sustainability of the cocoa sector.

Platform for public-private partnership cocoa and coffee chains (Pppp) is a body which is part of the strategies for implementation of the new revival plan and development of cocoa and coffee for Cameroon over the period of 2015-2020. It was adopted on September 30, 2014, in Yaoundé. On January 9, 2015, the Pppp held its first plenary session.

A working session which was also characterized by the installation ceremony of the members of the platform created by decision No. 041 SG/PM of July 22, 2014, and whose composition has been ascertained by decision 049 SG/PM of 10th November of the same year.

The change with the establishment of the Pppp is explained by Michael Ndoping, Dg of the national cocoa and coffee Board (Nccb): "for a long time, it has been an issue from public to private actors, the "top-down approach". In the platform, it is the opposite; that is from the 'bottom-up'. If we want to achieve the objectives that are ours and meet the requirements of the market, it must involve all the actors in these sectors, producers, buyers, traders, sellers of inputs, consumer... This is only the case of the State".

According to Evariste Evane, head of the technical unit for monitoring and coordinating premature cocoa and coffee, also President of the Pppp, it is important to "pull efforts, expertise, financial and human resources in order to improve the competitiveness of cocoa and coffee".

And the meeting of January 9, which saw the presence of the representative of the International Cocoa Organization (Icco), Han Loke Fong, and the SG of the Ministry of scientific research and Innovation, Rebecca Ebele Etamé, therefore was designed to give real content to the platform, a material of work for the achievement of the increase in production targets set by the recovery plan: 600, 000 tonnes of cocoa, 130,000 tonnes of robusta coffee, 35 000 tonnes of Arabica; an objective whose implementation will require 600 billion F.