By Tamfu Hanson
YAOUNDE, Aug 4 2009 (IPS)

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.

Over five years, the PNDRT programme claims to have raised production of cassava from 8-10 tons per hectare to 25- 30 tons per hectare. Credit: Tamfu Hanson/IPS

More than 550 hectares have been set aside to produce improved seeds and cuttings for distribution to farmers at subsidised rates: farmers in 221 villages have received 5.5 million improved cassava cuttings from by PNDRT.

In 2004, Emilie Nyate was typical of women in the village of Ngam – living with her husband and six children in their four- roomed house. Her husband had lost his job as fire fighter with the now-defunct Cameroon Airlines Company, in the IMF-imposed privatisation schemes of the 1990s, and the family fortunes had declined steadily since then.

Paul Nyate offered me a wooden chair before disappearing behind the house. He soon reappeared with some fresh palm wine, as Emilie tells me the life before the PNDRT.

The PNDRT stresses women’s participation in the programme and she has seized the opportunity with both hands. Her husband generously allowed her access to his share of the village land, and working along with her two sons, a brother-in-law and her husband, she quickly accumulated experience, becoming one of the village’s largest producers of cassava.

Her skills have not gone unrecognised: she is president of the local coordination committee and PNDRT secretary general for the whole district. “I am sometimes hired by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and other groups as a trainer in workshops for women groups involved in roots and tuber cultivation.

“I am highly respected today because of my role in cassava business. I sponsor all my children in school – two of them at the university level,” she stresses proudly.

Nyate’s story is a shining example of the impact of this programme on its 7,500 beneficiaries.

PNDRT has significantly boosted the production of cassava and other crops in the regions where it is active. Ninety-three percent of the programme is dominated by cassava; a root crop which is benefiting spectacularly as a result of intensive research. Cassava grows very well in almost all regions of Cameroon due to the many improved varieties and adaptation to many soil types.

The PNDRT Programme has organised previously-isolated farmers into Village Coordination Committees (CVCs). The 250 CVCs are involved in the construction and management of rural infrastructure such as markets, bridges and road maintenance, all financed by the programme.

“It was necessary to discourage individualism and inculcate a spirit of enterprise through training,” says Benjamin Bidjoh, the South Cameroon Regional Coordinator of PNDRT which has some 50 CVCs. This region borders Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, where farmers have found an expanding market for cassava in all its forms.

“I think we have concretely translated into practice the spirit behind PNDRT – that of organising and facilitating life for farmers through the creation of infrastructure and outreaching for marketing of produce,” he concludes.

In addition to cassava, potatoes are also doing quite well under the PNDRT project.

In the western region of Cameroon, many farmers have virtually abandoned other crops to concentrate on potato production according Gilbert Focachouet, the traditional ruler of Latchouet village.

“Gabonese traders come right to this village to buy potatoes and that is what gives us the inspiration,” Focachouet told IPS by phone. He says potato cultivation has been transformed from a subsistence activity to mass production, thanks to improved seeds and the use of pesticides.

“Before the arrival of PNDRT, we used to plant potatoes in smaller quantities and side by side with other crops but today we plant hectares of potatoes only,” says Tsakeu Daniel, a potato seed producer in Latchouet village.

“From 2005-2009, we have attained 40 percent of our targeted objectives in terms of the activities: production, transformation, capacity building”, says Ngue Thomas Bissa, the National Coordinator of the PNDRT. “I think we have sufficiently laid the base. By 2012 when the programme is expected to end we should have covered the remaining 60 percent,” he adds.

According to Ngue, the execution of the project has radically improved production of cassava from 8-10 tons per hectare to 25- 30 tons per hectare today. “Increased production has provoked other needs. We have constructed two warehouses for cassava at the cost 17 million FCFA (34,000 dollars) and five drying facilities for those producing cassava pellets for eventual processing into flour.”

On the whole, the PNDRT will be producing about 24,000 tons of cassava in 2009. “This year, our objective is to put 800 hectares improved cuttings at the disposal of farmers for this programme which is impacting 250 of Cameroon’s approximately 6000 villages,” concludes Lydie Ngiumbous, the programme’s evaluation expert.

In the process broadening the smiles – and confidence – of women like Emilie Nyate.

Excerpt:

By Tamfu Hanson
GAROUA, Cameroon, Nov 26 2008 (IPS)

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.

MFIs are the only financial institutions available in 42 percent of the national territory. They provide a host of services such as savings and loans, rapid money transfer, insurance and the payment of salaries.

Microfinance – in the form of traditional “njangis” or “tontines” – have been around for about a hundred years in Cameroon. 1963 witnessed the creation of the first formal credit union in Anglophone Cameroon with under Dutch coaching and assistance.

But MFIs only established their present powerful presence in Cameroon’s financial landscape following changes to the law in the early 1990s, which eased freedom of association and the creation of cooperatives.

At roughly the same time, Cameroon’s formal banks experienced a crisis; many banks closed down, leaving a big vacuum especially in rural areas. Senior staff and other workers from these collapsing banks took up the challenge to help both themselves and the rural communities.

An example of these cadres is Daniel Kalbassou, General Manager of Credit Du Sahel. He remembers how ten years ago, BIAO-Meridian Bank closed down and he lost his job as Director of Marketing and Field Operations.

He then started an MFI with just $40.000. Today Credit Du Sahel has a revolving capital base of one million dollars and covers its 18 branches are spread through half the country.

MFIs grew rapidly in size and number through the 1990s, in diversified and innovative forms: agricultural, village-based, gender-focused and more. This dynamism – and a lack of professionalism and control – attracted government intervention.

The Cameroon Credit Union Leaque (CAMCCUL), is without a doubt the MFI with the largest network having over 177 affiliates and a membership of 300,000. This success continues despite a whopping 2.5 million dollars lost by CAMCCUL when two banks hosting their accounts collapsed in 2002.

In 2006, the total volume of MFI transactions stood at 324 million dollars up from $76 million in 2000 and representing 20 percent of national banking transactions – up from 6 percent in 2000.

With the proliferation of MFIs, conmen and quacks have also infiltrated the sector. Reports are frequent in newspapers of dubious MFIs disappearing with the meagre savings of poor earners. Such impostors have pushed the general public to be wary of any newcomer into the sector.

In the absence of proper governance, an establishment may be no more than a front for an individual or a family. Some of them have acute liquidity problems; sometimes unable to satisfy even five percent of their customers.

According to Guy Roger Zo’o Olouman, sub-director in charge of MFIs at Cameroon’s Ministry of Finance, even when authorised, many of these institutions still operate outside the law. “They indulge in operations that do not fall within their competence, creating confusion and rendering control difficult for the administration.”

Olouman says some of them engage in international transactions and open branches of their institutions – an exercise which he says requires a prior evaluation by the ministry. According to the official, too many establishments recruit incompetent and untrained staff and do not respect the internal control mechanisms of the structures.

But speaking at a recent sensitisation forum for microfinance stakehlders, he warned that such short cuts will have to cease, MFIs have to avoid the unpleasant surprises from the Central African Banking Commission (COBAC). “Irregular MFIs will be closed down in the nearest future if they do not respect the regulations in place.”

In 2006, 250 MFIs were closed down for operating without authorisation and non-compliance with the regulatory framework.

While accepting that they sometimes violate the law, MFIs accuse formal banks of unfair competition. “Some banking institutions view us as competitors instead of considering us as complementary actors down the base,” says Nfor Musa Shey, President of CAMCCUL. Shey says the banks tend to deliberately delay or block their transactions just to kick them out of business.

Hamadama Housseini, manager of the Garoua branch of Credit Du Sahel sees this as a serious impediment to the survival of MFIs. “Banks delay guarantee certifications for tender files of our clients and our cheque clearance thereby discrediting us vis-à-vis our clients.

In response to this, Madiba Thomas Mann, branch manager of SCB Bank, Garoua accused MFIs of dabbling in services reserved for the formal banking system. “If a company is big enough to bid for contracts it should open an account with a bank rather dealing with a MFI,” he says.

In the face of these growing problems, the government is organising training seminars and forums for stakeholders. It is also working with the African Development Bank to put in place a revolving fund to assist the sector. The Governor of the Bank of Central African States, Philibert Andzembe says in addition to the adopted legal framework, COBAC will now go into the repressive phase to ensure that the rules of the game are respected.

MFIs could serve as an effective bulwark in the fight against poverty if government pays more attention in cleaning up the sector.

Excerpt:

By Tamfu Hanson
GAROUA, Cameroon, Nov 13 2008 (IPS)

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.

Smuggled fuel --"From top to bottom, all of us are living on it." Credit: Tamfu Hanson/IPS

Official fuel from Cameroon's national oil refinery is far more expensive than Nigerian fuel smuggled in across the border. Most of Cameroon's own oil output from offshore wells is immediately exported, meaning the state oil company has to refine expensive imported stock.

Petroleum products in Nigeria remain heavily subsidised, where the price of petrol is a volatile topic, perhaps the one government action guaranteed to provoke widespread strikes.

Borders – where economies meet and greet

Cameroon shares a 1,700 kilometre border with Nigeria. Nigerian militants in the oil-rich Delta region, criminals and corrupt government officials are all finding a lucrative trade in oil illegally siphoned from the oil infrastructure.

A thriving black market is found in neighbouring countries, among them Cameroon – believed to be second only to Benin as a destination for bunkered fuel from Nigeria.

Trafficking in fuel is a well-organised network involving thousands of smugglers who transport petrol, diesel, kerosene and paraffin across this frontier, often adulterating it along the way in order to make higher profits.

Numerous bush paths and entry roads render the transactions easier; but in any case so-called forces of Law and Order are not there for order, but to share in the booty. Smugglers risk their lives in pursuit of profits. In December 2007, a truck-load of fuel caught fire at the far northern town of Kousseri. All the four occupants were burnt to ash as the roadside villagers watched helpless.

You chop, I chop

The uncountable security checkpoints on both sides of the divide only serve as a cover-up. One smuggler – who for obvious reasons declined to give his name – told IPS that he offers bribes at every checkpoint.

"You must 'settle' or bribe them, else they seize your fuel and sell it," he said, adding that they have devised all kinds of tactics to escape being tracked by the security chain, lest bribes drain their trip of profit in the end.

"But it is a chop I chop business," a nearby custom official was over-heard saying. The numerous security control points reveal the true story. A junior police officer confided that he works for his boss on the supply chain. He said everybody is involved.

"From top to bottom, all of us are living on it," he declared, adding that he is building his third house, despite having been in police service only for six years. How else would one explain the fact that retailers are visible after every 500 metres, while custom officials claim they are fighting to stop the trade.

"Once the fuel is on the street, you cannot seize or stop them from selling it," claims Customs Field Operations Officer Toudjani Abouya, adding that officers risk being burnt if they should venture to seize fuel on the streets.

But another smuggler who begged to remain anonymous told IPS that many security officials are also involved in the smuggling."Some of us are working for them," he intimated.

For thousands of youths, trafficking is the only escape from the generalised unemployment."I have been in the business for over fifteen years. Today I am married to two wives with six children and living in my own house, thanks to it," explains Sule Amadou, a 37-year-old university graduate.

Top administrative officials have made sporadic efforts in the past to stop the trade to no avail.At one Point, the attempt met with violent resistance from the youths, who threatened to go a rampage.

According to Simon Etsil, the legal and financial advisor to the governor of Cameroon's North Province, with the Cameroon/Nigerian dispute over the Bakassi Peninsula now virtually laid to rest, there are plans under way to normalise and legalise trade links between the two countries.

It's too soon to say how this will affect petrol smuggling, but this well-entrenched trade will not easily be wished away.

Excerpt:

By Tamfu Hanson
GAROUA, Oct 23 2008 (IPS)

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.

Last year Guiding Hope sold two million litres of honey from bee-keepers across the Adamawa region of Cameroon. Credit: Tamfu Hanson/IPS

Guiding Hope's shareholders include Mboui, who coordinates purchasing and processing of honey and wax, Managing Director Michael Njikeu, and Production Manager Herman Tcamba, responsible for processing honey for the national market. Verina Ingram oversees environmental policy and international relations, while Yves Soukontua is in charge of research and development. Coordinating client relations is the sixth and final shareholder, Rebecca Howard, indisputably the driving force behind Guiding Hope.

Five years ago, Howard was an undergraduate student of anthropology interning with a network of community-based NGOs, one of which took her along to meet the bee-keepers in the Adamawa area of northwestern Cameroon. "I developed an interest in traditional methods of bee-keeping and the role it plays in the local economy and immediately realised the need for a more reliable market," recounts Howard.

Back in Britain, she linked up with Tropical Forest Products, a company dealing in tropical products and buying honey from Zambia, and proposed the idea of importing good quality honey from Cameroon.

As a volunteer development coordinator for the company, Howard gained a wealth of experience about honey quality, and the challenges of exporting it to the European market. She traveled to Uganda and Rwanda to learn more about honey production in the African context while maintaining her Cameroon connections.

Fair trade for traditional bee-keepers

Three years ago, Howard returned to Cameroon create Guiding Hope whose objective is to develop profitable, environmentally and socially responsible trade of high quality, fair-trade organic honey and other bee products for the African and European markets. Working closely with about 10,000 bee keepers, Guiding Hope is promoting and helping to refine traditional apiculture methods; introducing new, high-value wax products such as soap and candles; and promoting export.

Products include the naturally smoky flavoured liquid from beehives in the rich flowering Adamawa forest savanna. There is also a creamy, naturally granulated white honey from the Kilum-Ijum forest – one of the last remnants of cloud forest rich in biodiversity. Guiding Hope also produces hand-made soaps, candles and other beeswax-derived products.

Last year Guiding Hope sold two million litres of honey worth an estimated at $400,000 to Chad, Nigeria and Gabon as well as within Cameroon. Wax brought in approximately $240,000.

If all goes well, five containers of honey and five more of wax will be exported to the European market by June 2009. "But if we don't make a quick breakthrough in Europe, we may be turning to South Africa and other places," says Howard.

The export of honey to the European Union is hanging in the balance as Guiding Hope is still working with the government and partners on setting up a honey monitoring residue system.

"We are working towards organic certification with a strict system of control and traceability from bee farmers to the bottle to ensure purity, quality and consumer confidence," says Guiding Hope director Njikeu.

"With the assistance and guidance of Guiding Hope, we are adding more value to our products. I learned bee keeping from my dad, but I am doing better than he was in his days. I pay school fees for my three junior brothers and my own daughter," declares Aminatou Hamoa, a 25 year old single mother who is in the honey business.

A local administrative official of the ministry of agriculture, Joseph Samaki, is quick to add that the project will tremendously improve the welfare of the population. "It will wipe the sweat of bee keepers who hitherto received very little for their efforts," he stresses.

Guiding Hope was one of winners of the 2008 awards for innovative projects for sustainable development awarded by the SEED Initiative. SEED – "Supporting Entrepreneurs for Sustainable Development" – is a global network that supports progress on Millennium Development Goals in line with the principles outlined at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002.

Excerpt:

By Tamfu Hanson
GAROUA, Sep 4 2008 (IPS)

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.

Projects like this cereal mill are threatened by bureaucratic bottlenecks. Credit: Tamfu Hanson/IPS

“We don’t only offer credit, we ensure that they effectively use the money they borrow. That is why our programme includes literacy training, gender awareness, accounting and much more,” reveals Foudama, national coordinator of PARFAR.

“We are all happy today thanks to the loan. It is from this project that I now sponsor seven children in school; from primary to the university level,” says Hamidou. In a region where cereals are the staple food, an average of 150 households grind their corn or millet at the mill every day, earning the group about 15,000 CFA (a little under $35); a significant daily intake in a country where 2005 figures from UNDP show 50 percent of the population survive on less than two dollars a day.

Ironically, Hamidou’s group, which has fully repaid the initial loan, cannot borrow more money because the microfinance institutions (MFIs) running the credit scheme are sitting on huge sums supposed to be paid back to PARFAR for continuous lending to the community. MFIs are the direct providers of funds to PARFAR’s beneficiaries.

“Loan reimbursement rate from the MFI is 45 percent as against 80 percent from the beneficiaries which means that loans cannot continue to flow as we want,” complains Yatahad Viche, North Province’s chief field officer for the project. The MFIs are accused of failing to deposit the money repaid to them into PARFAR accounts immediately, instead investing it elsewhere.

This situation is compounded by conflicts over issues of sovereignty and protocol and other bureaucratic bottlenecks on the government side. There is also the interference of numerous ministries in the project leading to delays and non-compliance with datelines

“Because of these, the project started almost a year late following the signing of an agreement between the government and ADB. By the time we started receiving the money, its value had already depreciated vis-à-vis the CFA. So you can understand our problems,” says Viche. Out of the project’s total budget of $3.5 million, little of the government’s agreed contribution of 2.8 percent has come in.

Out of a population of over 4.5 million in the project area, women constitute 51 percent of an estimated 3,000 beneficiaries of the project.

Tangible benefits

Worro Iabbo village depended on an old well dug by the Germans way back in 1945 until PARFAR came to its assistance with a borehole which now supplies clean water to the over 3,000 inhabitants of the village.

Boubakari Souaibou is chairman of Woru Iabbo’s borehole management committee. He told IPS that the well has brought a lot of relief to the village.

“The number of children with stomach disorders and other minor ailments we used to have in this village has reduced tremendously. Without this borehole I can’t imagine what the situation would have been today… but God has his ways own of intervening in situations,” Boubakari says.

PARFAR has supported the establishment of 151 wells, boreholes, 57 warehouses, 160 latrines. Project funds have helped set up two centres where cereals are ground into flour. And in collaboration with Cameroon’s National Institute of Agricultural Research, PARFAR has also trained 282 agents who popularise improved seeds and seedlings to farmers.

Twelve “women promotion centres” where women can learn basic business skills, literacy and computing and get health tips have also been built.

Nearly $900,000 has been distributed to CIGs, associations and individuals.

By the end of 2009, PARFAR will stop giving out new loans but the programme’s managers insist that it will leave a lasting impact on a vulnerable population. The repaid money will be used to sustain existing projects.

“I think the seed production centres, warehouses, and women promotion centres will constitute the hallmarks of this project with all its institutional and management insufficiencies in spite of ourselves… “says Foudama.

Officials are training community leaders to take over from PARFAR officials in coaching and assisting the population. And while resources remain scarce, a spirit of collective endeavour may be a lasting legacy.

In Worro Iabbo, where a population of 3,000 is putting pressure on the single borehole PARFAR funds provided, the well’s managers are working out strategies to acquire another borehole.

“We are appealing to the population to chip in coins as they fetch water to enable us carry out minor repairs and eventually acquire another borehole since we have to deposit CFA 200,000 ($440) as the village contribution,” explains Boubakari.

Excerpt:

By Tamfu Hanson
GAROUA, Aug 16 2008 (IPS)

"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.

About 80,000 trees have been planted in this area – described by Kousseri mayor Mahamat Abdoulkarim as the desert's gateway into Cameroon. More than one million trees will be planted across Cameroon this year.

"This is the country's contribution to the global efforts against climate change," the minister said. He said tree planting is no longer an issue for professionals but everybody's concern emphasising that people should not only plant but follow up to ensure that the trees are growing well.

In Cameroon's dry sahel zone, almost 97 percent of the population depends on wood as a primary source of fuel for cooking.

"Today firewood in the North is an intensive commercial activity. It is a major source of employment for the people and if it is to be stopped, an alternative source of employment must be sought," says Jacques Billong, the North Provincial Delegate for the environment and protection of nature.

It is against this background that Minister Ngolle Ngolle is criss-crossing the country to awaken national consciousness on the necessity of planting more trees.

In the southern part of the country, commercial logging is the major problem. The north is bedevilled by significant loss of original wooded savannah to seasonal shifting cultivation over-grazing by livestock, large scale cutting of wood for domestic energy use, devastating wild fires, trophy hunting and poaching.

Following wars and repeated coups d'état in neighbouring Chad, the northern part of Cameroon has witnessed a significant influx of refugees with a resultant additional pressure on the land.

In the north, almost all the protected areas, reserves and parks are being encroached upon. In the Faro administrative division, people are cutting down large wooded areas. exposing land and people alike to extreme conditions during the dry season.

Between January and about mid-May temperatures in this region sometimes reach 47 degrees celsius.

"During this period we just have to pitch mosquito nets on the verandas and sleep outside our rooms throughout," confirms Ngwa Bah, a primary school teacher in Garoua, a town in which every house has its trees, planted to moderate the high temperatures.

"For 9 or 10 years now, the river beds have been empty. These are streams which at one point were permanent but today you can find water in them only at the peak of the rainy season," says Clement Njiti, the Peace Corps associate director for agro-forestry and environment. He says that 78 percent of Garoua residents rely on firewood for cooking; outside the town, firewood is the only source of fuel.

Gatwe Juskine, a forest and water technician, says the desert is advancing at a terrific rate. From a vantage position outsde Garoua, today one looks out over endless flat, empty land scoured by southerly winds. In some villages, women now trek up to five kilometres to fetch water.

People battle over water pools with animals. In major wildlife parks, several species including the black rhinos, hippopotamus, wild dogs, cheetah and panthers are under threat of extinction as the wooded savannah now remains only in patches. Many cattle herders have moved permanently to the south in search of grazing land.

Operation Green Sahel

In the early 1980s, Operation Green Sahel planted about 10 million trees in an effort to stop the advancing desert, but this programme ended abruptly due to the generalised economic crises. Some of the repressive methods employed – including seizures of wood and charcoal and detaining people suspected of illegal wood-cutting – have not been missed, but the desert continues to move steadily south.

Local and international NGOs and even the corporate sector have stepped in to support the government's renewed efforts. The World Wildlife Fund is currently executing a reforestation project with support from a major cellphone company.

The "Tree For Life" campaign aims to plant at least 90,000 trees, of which nearly a quarter will be fruit trees. The aim is to encourage locals to see and feel the benefits of reforestation and protect the newly-planted seedlings.

The Peace Corps' Njiti endorses this strategy: "In the final analysis, the only way to salvage the situation is to plant trees to stop the encroaching desert. But we should not plant just any trees; they should be fast growing multi-purpose trees."

Billong sums the situation up this way: "I can assert that the fight against desertification has entered the mentality of the people in the north, because they feel it. But poverty and unemployment is pushing them to continue to put pressure on the wooded savannah."

Excerpt: