Emilie Nyate has a two million CFA smile on her face these days. She's one of the beneficiaries of the Roots and Tubers Market- Oriented Programme, known better by its French acronym of PNDRT, which is transforming the lives of small-scale farmers in Cameroon.
Microfinance institutions (MFIs) have improved access to credit and banking services for poor Cameroonians. But the rapid growth in the number and size of these institutions in recent years is underpinned by dangerous disorder.
No one pays full price for petrol in northern Cameroon, not when there's cheaper Nigerian contraband available. In Garoua town for example, there are about 4,000 commercial motorcycles which all depend on "zoa zoa" or "federale" as this highly cherished liquid is generally referred to.
Paul Mboui's family will soon move into the attractive new bungalow he is building. Then he will rent out his present compound as a warehouse to Guiding Hope, the honey trading company that has made him prosperous.
Mrs Adjoumi Hamidou is the President. One of three surviving widows of Ali Hamidou, she heads Akoldiningnal, a collective that runs a multi-cereal mill at Gashiga village, 15 kilometres from the capital of Cameroon's North Province, Garoua.
"I have come to plant trees - that is why I have left my jacket and tie in Yaoundé" declared Cameroon's Minister of Forest and Wildlife, Elvis Ngolle Ngolle, as he launched the tree planting at a small village near the town of Kousseri, in the north of the country. In four minutes, the minister and his staff planted a hundred trees as a bulwark against rapidly encroaching desert.