22, May 2019
Electronic Trade Helps Cameroonian Farmers 0
Information technologies are changing the lives of some Cameroonian farmers who previously depended on brokers to market their goods. Now, these farmers can use the internet to find customers directly, cutting out some intermediaries and increasing their own profits.
Loic Domguia raises poultry, selling almost entirely online and through phone apps. Through electronic sales over the last year, he says he has increased his income.
Domguia uses Jangolo Farmers, an application that links producers and buyers.
“It reduces the stress on the producer,” Domguia says. “The producer no longer waits until the end” worrying about getting customers. Producers “sleep well knowing they already have orders.”
Designer Rose Ngameni says Jangolo enables producers to line up customers before bringing goods to market.
“The farmer has a higher profit margin by selling through our application,” she says. The app even enables producers to get paid in advance.
Ngameni says the app also benefits the customer. Reducing the number of intermediaries means producers hold down marketing expenses, so they can offer lower prices to customers.
Cameroon’s National Institute of Statistics reports that a fourth of the country’s 25 million residents connect daily with the internet.
Users increasingly are buying agricultural items online.
One of those e-commerce customers is Pierre Freddy Ngoudi. He says he places online orders for chicken because his work all day at a gym leaves too little time to shop. He has chicken delivered to his workplace.
Cyprain Tankeu, a specialist in electronic trade, says it’s smart for agribusinesses to develop online sales platforms. But he cautions that online sales may not always give customers sufficient information about purchases.
“If a company does not own stores, it would be difficult for buyers to evaluate the product they are buying,” he says. “… The lack of a store is an obstacle to the development of this type of e-commerce.”
The African Development Bank estimates the continent has more than a billion mobile phone subscribers, creating a huge potential market for farmers to use e-commerce.
Source: VOA
23, May 2019
US: Washington Police Reject Calls To Stop Anti- Biya Protest 0
Police in Washington DC has turned down a request from the French Embassy to send away protesters chanting Anti-Paul Biya songs in front of the Embassy. Members of Brigade Anti-Sardinards – BAS, a Pro-Kamto group are said to have gathered at the French Embassy at 4101 Reservoir Road, NW Washington DC, US, Monday May 20, 2019 to demonstrate their disdain for the Cameroon government. Reports say as they were chanting protest songs, carrying placards describing Paul Biya, Cameroon’s President as a Murderer and Dictator, elements of the DC Police appeared at the venue at the behest of the French Embassy. Our source hinted that the Embassy had called the police in the hope that protesters would be kicked out of the arena. Instead, the police allowed the protest on the grounds that those involved had duly received a permit in line with the law.
A participant at the protest said they were protesting against the Biya Regime that has used the military to kill thousands in the two English-speaking Regions of the North West and South West, adding that the choice of the French Embassy weighs on the fact that French President, Emmanuel Macron might be supporting the carnage going on in Cameroon. Live bullets corroborating those from the Rapid Intervention Battalion, a special unit of the Cameroon military known by its French acronym as BIR have been in many occasions found on the innocent civilians each time they’re killed.
On October of 2016 a disagreement in language led to agitations in the two English-speaking regions but government mismanaged it, turning it into an armed conflict with a demand by majority of Anglophones in the North West and South West for a separate state called Ambazonia. The Cameroonians were also protesting against what they describe as Electoral Holdup and also calling on the release of Prof Maurice Kamto, Chair of Cameroon’s main opposition political party, Cameroon Renaissance Movement (CRM) who has been officially charged on eight (8) counts including facing a death penalty. Kamto competed in the country’s Presidential Elections against incumbent Paul Biya and went on to declare he won. He later challenged the results at the country’s Constitutional Council where the Council’s ruling was considered by many Cameroonians as jaundiced. Kamto believes the Electoral Commission imputed figures to favour the incumbent especially as elections were boycotted in the North West and South West Regions buried in an armed conflict
Source: Leadership.ng