The African Development Bank (www.AfDB.org) and the Commission of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have signed a memorandum of understanding for $3.56 million in grant funding to support the development of pharmaceutical industries in West Africa.

Lamin Barrow, Managing Director of the Bank for Nigeria and Mamadou Traoré, ECOWAS Commissioner in charge of Industry and the Private Sector, signed the agreement for the Pharmaceutical Industry Development Support Project in West Africa on Wednesday.

The project’s total cost is $3.77 million, to which the ECOWAS Commission will provide $200,000 in cash and $400,000 in-kind.

The funds will support the implementation of regulations to allow duty-free access to pharmaceutical raw materials, packaging, and finished products under the ECOWAS Common External Tariff. It will also help establish an effective regional pharmaceutical regulatory ecosystem by providing technical assistance programs for regional regulatory authorities.

Commissioner Traoré said: “Local production of pharmaceuticals and biologicals has become an imperative and a regional priority, as is the provision of healthcare delivery services. The African Development Bank’s support of these priorities will help ECOWAS achieve its development objectives.”

During the signing ceremony held in Abuja, the African Development Bank’s Director General for Nigeria, Lamin Barrow said: “The COVID-19 crisis has further exposed the fragility of our national healthcare systems and posed significant disruptions to the global health and pharmaceutical supply chains. This underscores the urgency of accelerating efforts to ensure a minimum level of supply of health products.”

The project will enhance the pharmaceutical industry’s competitiveness through improved quality and product standards and help ensure that the region complies with best practices in manufacturing pharmaceutical products and supplies. It will strengthen regional training institutions and laboratories to ensure that the required skills are available to support the industry’s regional growth in a gender-sensitive and environmentally friendly manner.

In response to calls from the African Union and the pharmaceutical industry, the African Development Bank has taken a leadership role in developing and driving a continental Vision and Action Plan for a new African Pharmaceutical order. Bank Group President Dr. Akinwumi A. Adesina announced last year that the institution would mobilize up to $3 billion to support this development.

The project will also advance the Bank’s efforts to support the harmonization of the regulatory environment for pharmaceuticals across Africa at the regional and continental levels. This, in tandem with the operationalization of the African Continental Free Trade Area, will deepen intra-African integration and trade, boosting regional markets.

The Bank’s Vice President for Private Sector, Infrastructure and Industrialisation, Solomon Quaynor, said: “To develop the pharmaceutical industry, the African Development Bank will help to develop local production capacities to increase the market share of African (local and regional) pharmaceutical production value to 45-55% by 2030.”

The project aligns with three of the African Development Bank’s High Five strategic priorities: Industrialize Africa, Integrate Africa, and Improve the quality of life for the people of Africa. It also advances the Bank’s Regional Integration Strategy for West Africa, and is in line with the Bank’s gender strategy, and its strategic response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The ECOWAS Commission will be the executing agency for this project, which will run for two years, starting from 2022. The West African Health Organisation will be the implementing agency.

 By APO Group

From airlines in Nigeria to shoppers in Malawi, Africans are feeling the impact of the Ukraine crisis in wrenching increases in the price of fuel, grain and fertiliser.

Global oil prices scaled decade-long highs of more than $100 a barrel shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, inflicting a hefty blow to many businesses south of the Sahara.

Both Ukraine and Russia are also major suppliers of wheat and other cereals to Africa, while Russia is a key producer of fertiliser.

The impact of the war and the West’s sanctions against the Kremlin are already starting to translate into higher prices for farm inputs and imported grain, AFP bureaus in Africa report.

For Lagos baker Julius Adewale, the crisis is a perfect storm.

Nigeria’s fragile power grid had recently been supplying just a few hours of electricity per day, forcing Adewale to turn to diesel-fueled generators for power — the cost of which has now soared.

“There is no light since yesterday and we’ve been running on gen since yesterday,” Adewale said this week, as workers stacked piles of loaves in his bakery.

“(The) cost of production has increased immensely.”

Nigeria is Africa’s largest oil producer and biggest economy, but it has little refining capacity.

The government subsidises the cost of petrol, but diesel and aviation fuel are sold at market price.

Several local airlines warned this month they were forced to cancel flights due to aviation fuel scarcities.

Diesel used to sell in Nigeria at around 300 naira (0.72 cents) a litre but now goes for 730 ($1.75) a litre.

“I don’t know how we are going to cope because 70 per cent of industries are running on diesel,” Lanre Popoola, a regional chairman of Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), told local media.

“Other businesses are also running limited hours on diesel as they cannot afford to use generators all day.”

Hardship ahead

If the crisis is sustained, said Eurasia Group analyst Amaka Anku, African countries which are big importers of fuel and grain will rank among the losers, although exporters of those commodities may be among the winners.

There are also countries that are heavily indebted, such as Ghana, which will struggle with higher borrowing costs as investor risk appetite lowers, she said.

Gas producers like Tanzania, Senegal and Nigeria may benefit from Europe’s moves to end its dependence on Russian energy, said Danielle Resnick at the Brookings Institution think tank.

But, she said, the immediate challenge was hardship for African families, millions of which are already struggling to get by.

“War in Ukraine means hunger in Africa,” International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said on Sunday.

High prices will for instance aggravate food insecurity in conflict-torn Ethiopia, where nearly 20 million people are in need of food aid.

– Inflation already here –

In many parts of Africa, the inflationary machine has already lurched into higher gear, AFP bureaus report.

In Kenya, a two kilogramme (4.4-pound) bag of wheat flour now sells for 150-172 Kenyan shillings (US$1.3 to US$1.5), compared to less than 140 shillings in February.

Sub-Saharan Africa’s No. 3 economy usually gets a fifth of its imported wheat from Russia and another 10 percent comes from Ukraine, according to government figures.

As for fertiliser, a 50-kilo bag that cost 4,000 shillings last year now changes hands for 6,500 shillings ($57) — a figure that is likely to increase as the planting season starts this month.

In the Ugandan capital Kampala, Ukraine’s crisis has already caused a surge in prices of soap, sugar, salt, cooking oil and fuel.

“Most of the essential commodities are produced locally but some ingredients are imported and their prices are being dictated by the shocks on international markets,” Junior Finance Minister David Bahati told AFP.

Cooking oil has risen from 7,000 shillings per litre ($1.94) in February to 8,500 shillings ($2.4) and a kilo of rice from 3,800 to 5,500 shillings, according to Kampala retail shops.

“My family of four people spend an average of 5,000 shillings to cater for food and other necessities but this is no longer enough… I now spend more than 10,000 shillings,” Ritah Kabaku, 41, a shop assistant in Kampala, told AFP.

‘Victims of war’

Wary of Ukraine-fueled inflation, Mauritius’ central bank has raised its key interest rate to two percent — its first hike since 2011.

“It is unfortunate that as the sky cleared after Covid 19, more clouds appeared,” Prime Minister Pravind Kumar Jugnauth said in a televised speech.

In Somalia’s capital Mogadishu, prices for fuel, cooking oil, construction materials and electricity have shot up.

“A week ago, the 20-litre jerrycan of cooking oil was $25, today it’s about $50. A litre of gasoline was $0.64 and today it runs about $1.80 — it’s crazy,” said Mohamed Osman, a trader.

In southern Africa, bread and cooking oil prices in Malawi have shot up by an average 50 percent.

“This war doesn’t concern us and it is not right that we should be paying such a high price,” Fatsani Phiri, an auditor who was buying bread in the capital Lilongwe.

“We cannot always be victims every time there is a war somewhere in the world.”

Source: AFP

Since 2016, for people in the restive English-speaking parts of Cameroon, each new year comes with the expectation of an end to the drawn-out separatist conflict. However, gratuitous violence rages on as the bloody war – which has so far killed over 5,000 people – continues unabated.

Barely two weeks into 2022, some nine workers at Cameroon’s largest agro-industrial company, the Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC), came face-to-face with death. They were toiling at the Sonne/Likomba Rubber Estate, one of CDC’s rubber plantations near the port town of Tiko in Southwest Cameroon, when gunmen abducted them, despite military protection. The kidnappers, who later claimed to be members of the Ambazonia Revolutionary Guards (one of several armed militia groups fighting to establish an independent, English-speaking state called Ambazonia) held them for 10 days in an undisclosed location.

The victims, including a lactating mother, were tortured, forced to carry assault rifles and grenades for the rebel fighters, and sing the national anthem of Ambazonia. In a video which was circulated on social media and seen by Equal Times, the plantation workers looked visibly hungry and dejected. Thankfully, they were eventually released without bodily injuries.

When their colleagues at the same estate were previously attacked at work, on two different occasions, the armed separatists beat them with machetes, inflicting serious bodily injuries. On one occasion, attackers asked six CDC plantation workers to place their fingers on tree trunks before chopping them off.

From the onset of the Anglophone crisis, separatists have been disrupting CDC operations as a form of economic sabotage. The CDC, which is engaged in the production of rubber, banana and palm oil for export, is the second biggest employer in Cameroon after the civil service.

Prior to the conflict, the state-run CDC was an important revenue stream for the government. The corporation generated 58.39 billion francs CFA (approximately US$101.8 million) from produce sales in 2016, according to CDC officials. But then, protracted fighting between increasingly bold armed separatists and government troops has forced the CDC to grind to a near-halt, seriously eroding the revenue base of the corporation. Since CDC plantations and factories are largely located in the troubled English-speaking Southwest region of Cameroon (one of two regions snared in the conflict, alongside the Northwest region), the conflict has dealt a heavy blow to the agricultural sector, and the CDC in particular, with its low-income plantation workers bearing much of the brunt of the chaos.

In 2016, before the outbreak of the conflict, CDC tells Equal Times that its workforce stood at 20,595. But as of 31 December 2021, this number had dropped to 15,505 workers, with about 50 per cent of the manpower on unpaid ‘technical leave’.

By 2019, only seven out of CDC’s 29 production sites were fully operational. Twelve had been shut down while 10 were partially functioning. This had an adverse impact on production capacity. For rubber, annual production fell from about 16,000 tons in 2016 to 4,507 tons in 2020. Palm oil production dropped from 22,375 tons in 2016 to 8,493 tons in 2020, while banana production fell from 113,858 to 6,178 tons over the same period.

Severally CDC processing plants have suffered from arson attacks. Meanwhile, separatists have also pitched their logistic and training camps in some plantations, forcing workers to abandon the farms. The disruption in activities saw CDC’s revenue plummet, and the company has since continued to default in the payment of its workers’ wages.

Quest for survival

As the fighting persists, many CDC workers have been caught in the crossfire. No fewer than 20 workers have been killed on and off duty since 2016, according to CDC trade unionists. Others have been exposed to violence as the corporation is unable to provide them with adequate security. Amid the insecurity and unpaid wages, some CDC workers, not keen to wait and see if the precarious situation will ever subside, have fled the country.

Twenty-nine-year-old Douon Basilise joined the CDC as a farm labourer in Tiko in 2014. She then rose to the rank of process control overseer, a position she held between 2016 and 2017 at CDC’s banana section. But insecurity and the uncertainty over wages was very bad for her morale.

“In September 2018, I met Amba fighters [armed separatists of the Ambazonia Defence Forces] on the field. As they approached me, I left everything in the changing room at Benoe Estate and took to my heels. I had to run for my life,” Douon discloses. That was the last time she ever set foot on a CDC plantation. With support from her family and friends, she ventured to the United Arab Emirates where she is currently exploring other opportunities.

Douon has described the working conditions of CDC employees, especially those in lower categories, as “extremely pathetic”. Not only do these workers often work additional jobs to make extra cash but they also live in dilapidated housing structures in camps that lack basic amenities.

Jonas Ebini Mbengtarh is another banana worker who has experienced the thorny issue of unpaid salaries at the CDC. He was owed 11 months of wages before being furloughed in September 2018. “My stay at the CDC was not the best,” Mbengtarh tells Equal Times, adding that he also contemplated embarking on a perilous journey to Europe.

“I was flat broke when I left the CDC. I decided to work in building construction sites as a general labourer for a meagre 2,500 francs CFA [approximately US$4.30] a day,” Mbengtarh says. He did this for 14 months to take care of his ageing parents and fiancée, before re-joining the CDC when the corporation restarted banana production.

For ordinary workers of the CDC, such as general labourers, the seemingly intractable situation means they have to lay their hands on anything they can to eke out a living. Some have heavily indebted themselves to get basic necessities such as food and clothing for their families, while others have resorted to additional menial jobs under extreme working conditions just to put food on their table. Some still work for the CDC though the corporation still owes them months of outstanding wages.

CDC in tight corner

Gabriel Mbene Vefonge, national president of the Cameroon Agricultural and Allied Workers Trade Union (CAAWOTU), which has over 2,500 CDC worker-members, says the situation is regrettable. Vefonge, who amongst other trade unionists had a meeting last October with the Prime Minister to discuss the issue of unpaid salaries, says the government is yet to give any concrete answers regarding full payment.

Vefonge also says that he regrets that socio-political tensions in Cameroon had caused an economic giant of CDC’s standing to fall to its knees, with several plantations currently in ruins. “CDC, over its more than 70 years of existence, has never gone through this kind of financial stress,” he says.

According to the workers’ representative, “working today as a CDC worker is a nightmare because all CDC workers are afraid to be killed while at their workplaces by unidentified gunmen. Their security and safety at work is not guaranteed, even with the presence of state security”.

Franklin Ngoni Njie, general manager of the CDC, acknowledges that “insecurity continues to be one of our major challenges”. He also tells Equal Times that the social climate at the CDC is currently tense, and that workers’ morale is not at the best as a result of the many months of salary arrears.

“Since May 2018, the corporation became unable to honour her commitments and has thus accumulated huge debts with workers – 27 billion francs CFA [approximately US$47 million],” Njie says.

The precarious situation has pushed CDC workers to go on several strikes in the plantation areas and in the capital city of Yaoundé.

Njie says the company is using its limited means to make payments to the workers who are actually working but did not specify the number. The corporation is also making efforts to offset its debt, he says. “The last time that the corporation successfully paid salaries and wages promptly to all its workers, amounting to 2.2 billion francs CFA [US$3.8 million] was in April 2018. Numerous reports have been made to the government on the explosive social climate in the corporation arising from the indebtedness to workers. From May 2018 to June 2021, a total of 20 billion francs CFA [US$34.8 million] has been paid out as salaries and wages, of which 11.74 billion francs CFA [ US$20.4 million] was received in 20 installments as grants from the government,” the GM says.

Njie also tells Equal Times that the corporation has provided 100 per cent medical coverage to its workers injured or maimed while at work, while those incapacitated have been redeployed to other duties. He also notes that while the coronavirus pandemic also affected production capacities, particularly for rubber and bananas, the CDC was still able to provide health coverage to its workers.

Culled from Equal Times

Cameroon said France had signed a deal valued at 150 billion CFA francs ($262 million) to support its budget.

The French Development Agency loan will finance projects up to 2024, Alamine Ousmane Mey, Cameroon’s minister of economy, planning and regional development, said in Yaounde. He didn’t describe the type of projects to be funded.

The loan represents France’s contribution to a three-year arrangement between the Central African nation and the International Monetary Fund. Last year, the IMF approved about $690 million of support for Cameroon to help its economy recover from the pandemic.

Source:  Bloomberg L.P.

Francophone army soldiers deployed to Southern Cameroons have been escorting several convoy of tanker trucks carrying stolen Ambazonia oil from the city of Victoria named by the Biya French Cameroun regime as Limbe.

Last week, the Department of Foreign Affairs of the Ambazonia Interim Government cited local sources from the Fako County as saying that so many convoy of French Cameroun tanker trucks loaded with Southern Cameroons oil were transferred to Douala.

According to the Ambazonia Interim Government report that was made public by Vice President Dabney Yerima, the oil was taken from Southern Cameroons main oil refinery in Cape Limbo in Limbe. Yerima added that Southern Cameroons stolen oil has often been transferred through the Victoria-Tiko Highway to Douala in French Cameroun.

The Southern Cameroons Vice President further said that a convoy of 54 military trucks carrying logistical equipment belonging to the Biya French Cameroun military entered the Bakassi area via Ndian County and have been participating in smuggling Southern Cameroons crude oil.

Soldiers of the Francophone military regularly smuggle Ambazonian oil to French Cameroun. The regime in La Republique du Cameroun has stationed forces and equipment in Fako and Ndian in the Southern Zone of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, with Yaounde claiming that the deployment is aimed at preventing the oilfields in the Bakassi area from falling into the hands of Nigwerian terrorists and Amba fighters.

The Ambazonia Interim Government, however, says the unlawful deployment is meant to plunder Southern Cameroons resources.

By Isong Asu with files from Fon Lawrence in Victoria-Limbe

A Pro Biya prosecutor has issued a travel ban against the CEO of the L’Anecdote Group, Jean-Pierre Amougou Belinga, who is among the top officials of the ruling CPDM party widely blamed for the unprecedented corruption in Cameroon.

The Judge issued the travel ban against Amougou Belinga, who has been at the center of investigations at home and abroad into his conduct launched after it was revealed the controversial Francophone business tycoon had several nasty deals with prominent Cameroon government ministers.

Cameroon Intelligence Report understands the judge imposed the ban as part of a Cameroon government investigation into the Amougou Belinga business empire, whose existence has come under public scrutiny. CIR’s chief intelligence correspondent in Yaoundé hinted that the next stage of the Amogou Belinga probe would be questions to the CEO at the Special Criminal Court.

A judicial source said the travel ban was pursuant to an end of year declaration by the 88-year old President Biya over alleged financial misconduct deep within government circles.

The source said the Amougou Belinga probe will include investigating alleged fraud and complaints about the CEO by journalists working for his private TV Channel in addition to looking at CAMPOST’s financial engineering operations involving Minister Paul Atanga Nji, Minister Issa Tchiroma and Minister Laurent Esso.  The source added that the Special Criminal Court had summoned Amougou Belinga for questioning over the case but the exact date of the session had yet to be publicly disclosed.

Amougou Belinga’s investments in France are also being investigated on suspicion of money laundering and illicit enrichment, among other allegations including dubious state subsidies.

When the big man arrived at the Yaoundé-Nsimalen airport to board an Air France flight to Paris, he was told by police officers carrying a ban on leaving the country that he could not enter the plane.  His travel documents, including a Central African Republic diplomatic passport, were taken away from him.

The Beti-Ewondo businessman reportedly protested and threatened to fight but he left the scene and return home after he was informed that Martin Mbarga Nguélé, the Delegate General for National Security was about to order his arrest.

Cameroon’s economy has been in a free-fall state since President Biya announced a massive anti corruption campaign more than a decade ago.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Eight employees of the Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC), the largest employer in the two Cameroons after the Francophone dominated civil service, were reportedly arrested last week Thursday on the Tiko-Douala road by Ambazonia Revolutionary Guards for defying Interim Government orders which prohibits any work in state-owned plantations in the entire Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

Cameroon Concord News gathered that seven workers and a tractor driver were picked up by Amba fighters after heavy exchange of gunfire with troops loyal to the Biya Francophone regime in Yaounde.

A CDC official who confirmed the incident to our Fako correspondent noted that “There are Cameroon government soldiers everywhere. We don’t know how these Amba fighters do it, because there are soldiers everywhere. We don’t know where they were stationed, to the point of succeeding in taking the workers away.”

The CDC Head Office in a poorly worded statement stated that “It is difficult to know in which direction the employees were taken, let alone where they are being held, if they are still alive. It is also difficult to know the identity of the kidnappers. But in all likelihood, they are alleged separatist militiamen, who have often been used to this type of crime.”

It has been a long time since Amba fighters in the Fako County staged attacks against CDC employees. This latest Amba action has put the CDC back into a state of psychosis as it tries to recover from the horrors of the Southern Cameroons crisis.

By Fon Lawrence in Tiko

About a fifth of every beer sold in Cameroon is a Guinness. This is outstanding for a beer that arrived relatively late on the Cameroonian drinking scene. According to Guinness Cameroun S.A, the stout was introduced to Cameroon at the start of the 20th-century by European traders who docked with bottles of the black stuff on board their ships.

It was an instant hit and Guinness Ltd, the London-based parent company at the time, started exporting to Cameroon to meet the growing demand. In 1967, Guinness Cameroun S.A was incorporated and a depot opened in the port city of Limbe to supply the local market. Three other depots quickly followed in other parts of the country, and by 1969 the decision was made to open a brewery in Douala. The brewery started serving Cameroonians homemade Guinness in 1970.

When TV launched in Cameroon in 1985, Guinness took advantage of the platform to run ads that not only charmed viewers but touted the beverage as the embodiment of strength. First, it was good for you, as in good for your health and mood, and then it brought out the power in you.

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Those old enough to remember often talk about when Guinness was sold in pharmacies. People would run to the bar after donating blood, and women would demand a pint or two while recovering on the delivery bed. People who didn’t drink Guinness would occasionally take it for stomach trouble. Conversations like these have taken the beer from regular drinking spaces into the lives of the non-drinking public. Of course, the company ties its success to something simpler: the quality of its product.

“Guinness Foreign Extra Stout is successful in Cameroon because of its heritage and quality,” explains Guinness Cameroun S.A’s Communications Manager, Jeanne Nji. “The quality of Guinness Foreign Extra Stout has not changed. The recipe remains the same, and our consumers are delighted with this same great taste.”

At the turn of the millennium, Guinness pushed the dialogue even further when they introduced Michael Power, a Bond-like character whose inspirational monologues accompanied an action-packed series that aired on TV and radio across Africa. Once again, Cameroonians were hooked.

Guinness also has a long association with the Mount Cameroon Race of Hope, a grueling foot race to the top of West Africa’s tallest mountain and back. The race is held annually and broadcast on national television.  Sponsorship of sports tournaments like the English Premier League works well in a football-mad country. The company takes on local causes and rewards its consumers with free bottles, cars, and cash during promotions. Ad campaigns like “Made of Black” and “Made of Greatness” target young consumers with aspirational messages that highlight their desire for self-expression.

Even stronger than the ads is the legion of cult followers who wouldn’t touch another beer with a stick. These ultra-fans are fiercely loyal and like to brag about how long they’ve stuck to the Guinness brand. For some, it’s an essential part of family tradition—having been passed down from their grandparents to their fathers—and something they hope their kids will carry on. There are even collectors among them who refuse to part with old Guinness bottles and crowns. These are the people who only go to bars and events that serve Guinness or carry their crates along.

Cameroon is currently ranked fifth in Guinness consumption, just behind the United States, which is 13 times bigger with over 30 million people of Irish descent. Cameroon doesn’t celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, but it shows its affection for Guinness in many other ways. One of the reasons Cameroon lost its fourth place to the U.S. is because Diageo (Guinness’ parent company) is trying to diversify its market by offering locally made premium wines and spirits and a range of lagers across Africa.

Guinness Cameroun S.A has a long history of experimenting with variations of Guinness like Guinness Smooth, Guinness Chocolate Stout, and Guinness Triple Black—a dark spirit that first launched in Cameroon in 2018. Guinness Triple Black was made to mark the company’s 50th anniversary in Cameroon.

It’s just as well that the unbelievers are being offered alternatives, especially in parts of the country where some drinks are banned. When civil war broke out in Cameroon in 2017, there were calls for Southern Cameroonians to boycott beer brands that put money into the pockets of the government.

Some independence fighters trying to enforce the ban have allegedly maimed or killed people for selling or consuming what they now consider contraband in the war zone. There’s a whole new set of people drinking Guinness or Guinness products because it’s the safe thing to do.

In other places, the fighters have taken the less violent route by placing tariffs on banned beers, but the most lucrative business comes from smugglers bringing in Guinness from neighboring Nigeria to satisfy the growing market.

Nigeria is the second-biggest consumer of Guinness globally, the kind of neighbor you want in times of desperate need. Nigeria and Cameroon are two of only six places where Guinness owns and runs its breweries. These two markets lead a continent where 40% of the world’s Guinness is brewed and sold.

Nigerian Guinness Foreign Extra Stout is cheaper, but Cameroonians think it’s weaker and aren’t keen on the taste. Blindfold a Cameroonian fanatic, and the disappointment on their face will tell you they’re drinking the neighbor’s poor substitute. Still, many would rather suffer the slight discomfort than drink any other beer.

Culled from Fodors.com

The World Bank approved on November 30, 2021 a credit from the International Development Association (IDA)* in the amount of $200 million to support Cameroon’s agricultural production in the Valley of Logone, located in the Far North region and being part of the Lake Chad basin.

The project, Valorization of Investments in the Valley of the Logone (VIVA Logone), seeks specifically to (i) support regional water security and governance of the water resources, mainly through rehabilitation of irrigation and drainage infrastructure and support to water users’ associations, (ii) promote agriculture and agribusiness production, and (iii) implement a transformational plan of SEMRY (Société d’expansion et de modernisation de la riziculture de Yagoua) and strengthen public services.

The project will benefit different groups of poor people: poor farmers, particularly women, by improving their ability to increase irrigation productivity and a likely doubling of cropping intensity; and through infrastructure investments and support for intensifying production, improved irrigation and drainage. In addition, improved flood management, including the early warning system in 300 km, would benefit the residents of the Logone Valley, both in Cameroon and Chad.

“A series of factors, ranging from ecological fragility to violence-related insecurity, have forced Cameroon’s agricultural sector to low productivity and low-production subsistence agriculture, particularly in the Far North. Irrigation is fundamental to ensure food security and contribute to reducing the risk of conflicts in this Sudano-Sahelian agroecological zone which is the most ecologically fragile and the most vulnerable to climatic shocks. The development of the Logone Valley plays an important role in the resilience of vulnerable communities, livelihoods and ecosystems, including their ability to better cope and adapt to the impact of climatic shocks” said Abdoulaye Seck, World Bank Country Director for Cameroon.

The project will have three main components: the first one will improve the infrastructure and water management; the second will promote production and support agriculture services and the third one will support the sector development and the implementation of the project.

Source: Devdiscourse

Currently, Cameroon’s road network is 121,873.93 kilometers long. However, only 48.86% of that network is in a good or average condition. As for the remaining 51.14%, it is in bad condition, Minister of Public Works Emmanuel Nganou Djoumessi explained on December 1, 2021, while defending the 2022 budget of his ministerial department before the parliament.

According to the official, the poor condition of those roads is due to a lack of maintenance fundings. Indeed, he explained, over the past ten years, Cameroon’s road network has increased by 121%, from 55 000 km in 2010, to 121,873.93 km in 2021. But the budget dedicated to its maintenance has not grown proportionally.

To address the situation, the government intends to not only concede the road maintenance but also implement a new strategy aimed at ensuring the sustainability of dirt roads that constitute well over 93% of the national road network, he explained.

The new strategy was developed because the Ministry of Public Works noticed that the maintenance solutions implemented so far have limitations. On June 1-3, 2021, a workshop was organized in Yaoundé to discuss the new strategy, we learn.

Based on new maintenance methods and the use of innovative products, the strategy is aimed at “improving the load-bearing capacity of the unconsolidated materials that usually form the surface of those roads. It is also aimed at reducing the impacts f traffic on them by controlling and monitoring the circulation of heavy vehicles as well as controlling and limiting the impacts of climatic conditions…”

Emmanuel Nganou Djoumessi stresses that the implementation of the new strategy will have to be supported with governance measures such as improved rigor in the execution of the works in strict compliance with agreed terms and the multiplication of monitoring and emergency intervention networks.

According to the Ministry of Public Works, the feedback collected one year after implementing this strategy will serve as guidelines for the elaboration of a technical guide for the maintenance of dirt roads taking into account ecological and technical specificities, the problems encountered, the optimal solutions, and the implementation protocol.

Ultimately, in addition to optimizing the maintenance of dirt roads, the strategy is expected t positively impact Cameroonians whose “living standard (…) is affected by the services they receive through those dirt roads.”

Source: Business in Cameroon