A drill monkey in an electric enclosure at the ranch. Credit: Promise Eze/IPS

By Promise Eze
BOKI, Nigeria, Oct 2 2025 (IPS)

For the past 23 years, Gabriel Oshie has started his mornings at Drill Ranch in the Afi Mountain Wildlife Sanctuary, Boki, Cross River state, southern Nigeria.

At sunrise, he walks through an electric enclosure at the ranch, giving bananas and other fruits to the over 200 endangered drill monkeys he watches over.

Drill monkeys are among the world’s rarest primates, known for their brightly coloured faces and short tails. They live in large groups led by a dominant male and are found only in parts of Nigeria, southwestern Cameroon and Bioko Island in Equatorial Guinea.

However, their numbers have fallen sharply due to deforestation, hunting and the illegal wildlife trade. The International Union for Conservation of Nature estimates fewer than 4,000 remain in the wild.

“Wildlife is the beauty of nature,” Oshie said, explaining what motivated him to work at the ranch. “When you see the drill monkeys, the forests, and other animals, you can’t help but appreciate their beauty. But it’s sad that people are destroying wildlife despite its importance.”

Gabriel Oshie has been working at the ranch for the past 23 years. Credit: Promise Eze/IPS

Wildlife Crime

Wildlife crime is the fourth most profitable illegal trade globally, worth billions of dollars each year. Nigeria has become a key hub, with porous borders and weak enforcement enabling traffickers to move ivory, pangolin scales and other endangered species.

Authorities have tried to curb the trade by shutting bushmeat markets and seizing smuggled wildlife. In July, officials announced the country’s largest wildlife-trafficking bust, intercepting more than 1,600 birds bound for Kuwait at Lagos International Airport.

But experts warn these efforts could fail if weak conservation laws, poor enforcement, limited public awareness and the lack of arrests or convictions persist.

“The state of biodiversity in Nigeria is in serious crisis,” said Rita Uwaka, Interim Administrator for Environmental Rights Action. “Much of our forested landscape has been depleted due to industrial plantations expansion, leading to significant loss of plant and animal species with devastating impacts on people and climate. We are also seeing concession agreements awarded to large-scale agro-commodities companies contributing to increased biodiversity loss. They arrive with promises of development, but vast forested areas, family farms, and ancestral lands are handed over to them amidst social, environmental, and gender impacts. In the process, they cut down forests that should serve as vital hubs for ecological conservation.

“The biggest drivers of biodiversity loss in Nigeria are in the agro-commodity sector, where large tracts of forest and wildlife sanctuaries are allocated to corporations at the expense of local communities, especially women and vulnerable groups who suffer differentiated impacts when forests and biodiversity are destroyed,” she added.

Preserving the drills

Two American conservationists, Liza Gadsby and Peter Jenkins, founded Drill Ranch in 1991 through their non-profit group Pandrillus. Now home to over 600 drills, it is the world’s most successful breeding project for the species.

En route to Botswana with only a tourist visa, Gadsby and Jenkins arrived in Nigeria where they learned of a gorilla conservation project in Boki. There, they discovered not only gorillas but also drill monkeys, thought before the 1980s to be nearly extinct outside Cameroon.

“Less was known about drills at the time, and they were more endangered than gorillas across Africa. Of course, the local people knew they were there all along, but the international community had only recently rediscovered them. So, we became quite interested in them,” Gadsby explained to IPS.

For over three years, their tourist journey took a different turn as they travelled across southeastern Nigeria and southwestern Cameroon, gathering information and persuading locals to surrender captive drills.

They established a sanctuary in Calabar, the capital of Cross River state, later expanding it into a natural habitat in Boki. They worked closely with 18 Boki communities, each contributing rangers who were often former hunters, to patrol the forests and deter poaching. Their efforts paid off, with locals surrendering as many as 90 drills to the project.

Today, the ranch houses both captive-bred and wild-born drills, each with a name and tattoo number. Alongside the drills, it cares for 27 chimpanzees, a soft-shell turtle and 29 African grey parrots seized from traffickers in 2021. In 2024, 25 parrots were released back into the wild.

The presence of Pandrillus in Boki, one of Nigeria’s largest green canopies, helped drive conservation gains in the area. In 2000, after a decade of lobbying, part of the forest reserve, where the ranch is located, was declared a wildlife Sanctuary by the government.

“We had been lobbying for over ten years, proposing that a portion of the forest reserve be upgraded to wildlife sanctuary status,” Gadsby said.

Bleak Future?

Rehabilitating drills into the wild is the main goal of the project, but rapid deforestation in Boki and Cross River is making this increasingly difficult, said ranch manager Zach Schwenneker.

With the thriving cocoa trade in the region, many people turn to farming for a living, often cutting down forests, including protected areas, for cultivation and exposing drills and other animals in the ranch to poachers.

Government support is also dwindling. Pandrillus once received monthly subventions to care for the animals, but the suspension of this funding has hindered conservation efforts. Today, the ranch relies largely on international aid and individual donations.

Uwaka told IPS that Nigeria’s National Biodiversity Strategic Action Plan would have effectively addressed these issues, but she argues that “The problem lies in enforcement. While the laws look impressive on paper, they are often ineffective in practice due to weak monitoring systems. Even where such systems exist, they are insufficient to ensure compliance. Policies should be put in place not to encourage poaching, and there should be strong regulatory frameworks to curb deforestation.”

For Oshie at the ranch, the project can only succeed if people value wildlife and biodiversity and no longer feel the need to hunt drills.

“But I’m here because I want to protect nature. If we are not here, logging activities could take over, destroying the trees and harming the animals,” he said.

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Fanta Mohamet, 14, writes on the blackboard at the school she attends in Zamaï, a village near a settlement for refugees in Mayo-Tsanaga, Far North Region, Cameroon on 28 May 2019. Courtesy: United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)

By IPS Correspondent
JOHANNESBURG, Aug 24 2019 (IPS)

Fourteen-year-old Fanta lives in a tent in a settlement in Zamaï, a village in the Far North Region of Cameroon with her mother and two brothers. They came here more than a year ago after her father and elder brother were murdered and her elder sister abducted by the extremist group Boko Haram.

The day members of the armed extremist group Boko Haram came to their home in Nigeria to search for her father, a police officer, was the day everything changed.

The fate of her sister is unknown but each year thousands of girls are abducted by the armed group and forced into marriage.

There are 1,500 other displaced people who live in the settlement in Zamaï – more than three fifths of whom are children. And while life remains difficult, Fanta has something many other children of violence in the region do not, she is able to continue her education despite the prevailing insecurity.

According to new report released Aug. 23 by the United Nations Children’s Agency (UNICEF), nearly two million children in West and Central Africa are being robbed of an education due to violence and insecurity in and around their schools.

“Ideological opposition to what is seen as Western-style education, especially for girls, is central to many of the disputes that ravage the region. As a result, schoolchildren, teachers, administrators and the education infrastructure are being deliberately targeted. And region-wide, such attacks are on the rise,” UNICEF noted.

Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Central African Republic (CAR), Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Niger and Nigeria, are experiencing a surge in threats and attacks against students, teachers and schools.

Areas where schools are primarily affected by conflict. Courtesy: UNICEF

The report also noted:

• Nearly half of the schools closed across the region are located in northwest and southwest Cameroon; 4,437 schools there closed as of June 2019, pushing more than 609,000 children out of school.

• More than one quarter of the 742 verified attacks on schools globally in 2019 took place in five countries across West and Central Africa.

• Between April 2017 and June 2019, the countries of the central Sahel – Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger – witnessed a six-fold increase in school closures due to violence, from 512 to 3,005.

• And CAR saw a 21 percent increase in verified attacks on schools between 2017 and 2019.

UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Charlotte Petri Gornitzka and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Muzoon Almellehan travelled to Mali earlier this week and witnessed first hand the impact on children’s education.

“Deliberate attacks and unabating threats against education – the very foundation of peace and prosperity have cast a dark shadow on children, families, and communities across the region,” said Gornitzka. “I visited a displacement camp in Mopti, central Mali, where I met young children at a UNICEF-supported safe learning space. It was evident to me how vital education is for them and for their families.”

UNICEF has supported the setup of 169 community learning centres in Mali, which provide safe spaces for children to learn.

The Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (GCPEA), a coalition of international human rights and education organisations from across the world, noted that in the past five years the coalition had documented more than 14,000 attacks in 34 countries and that there was a systematic pattern of attacks on education. “Armed forces and armed groups were also reportedly responsible for sexual violence in educational settings, or along school routes, in at least 17 countries, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, during the same period.”  

In May, GCPEA released a 76-page report on the effects that the 2016-2017 attacks by armed groups on hundreds of schools in the Kasai region of central Democratic Republic of Congo had on children.

Based on over 55 interviews with female students, as well as principals, and teachers from schools that were attacked in the region, the report described how members of armed groups raped female students and school staff during the attacks or when girls were fleeing such attacks. Girls were also abducted from schools to “purportedly to join the militia, but instead raped or forced them to “marry” militia members”.

“Being out of school, even for relatively short periods, increases the risk of early marriage for girls,” GCPEA had said.

UNICEF raised this also as a concern for children affected by the conflict in West and Central Africa.

“Out-of-school children also face a present filled with dangers. Compared to their peers who are in school, they are at a much higher risk of recruitment by armed groups. Girls face an elevated risk of gender-based violence and are forced into child marriage more often, with ensuing early pregnancies and childbirth that threaten their lives and health,” the UNICEF Child Alert titled Education Under Threat in West and Central Africa, noted.

Fanta Mohamet, 14, on her way home from school in Zamaï, a village near a settlement for displaced people in Mayo-Tsanaga, Far North Region, Cameroon on 28 May 2019. Courtesy: United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)

UNICEF has long been sounding the alarm about the attacks on schools, students and educators, stating that these are attacks on children’s right to an education and on their futures.

The agency and its partners called on governments, armed forces, other parties to take action to stop attacks and threats against schools, students, teachers and other school personnel in West and Central Africa – and to support quality learning in the region.

The U.N. body also called on States to endorse and implement the Safe Schools Declaration. The declaration provides States the opportunity to express broad political support for the protection and continuation of education in armed conflict.

“With more than 40 million 6- to 14-year-old children missing out on their right to education in West and Central Africa, it is crucial that governments and their partners work to diversify available options for quality education,” said UNICEF Regional Director for West and Central Africa Marie-Pierre Poirier. “Culturally suitable models with innovative, inclusive and flexible approaches, which meet quality learning standards, can help reach many children, especially in situation of conflict.”

UNICEF is working with governments across West and Central Africa to offer alternative teaching and learning tools, which includes the first-of-its-kind Radio Education in Emergencies programme. Other interventions also include psychosocial support, the distribution of exercise books, pencils and pens to children to facilitate their learning.

“Education is important. If a girl marries young, it’s dangerous. If her husband doesn’t care for her, with an education she can take care of herself,” Fanta said.

Minette (38) and her family fled their home in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions after their home was burned down. They have received some plastic sheeting and utensils from the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), and built a temporary kitchen at their new place in Buea. Photo: Tiril Skarstein/NRC

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, May 16 2019 (IPS)

The United Nations must act to prevent further devastation from the escalating crisis in Cameroon, human rights groups said.

Since 2016, worsening violence in Cameroon’s Northwest and Southwest regions has killed almost 2,000 people and displaced over 430,000 people.

For years, the UN has remained largely silent about the crisis. Finally, however, the Security Council held an informal meeting on Monday to address the situation in the Central African country. Still, more needs to be done.

“Security Council members should call on the government of Cameroon and leaders of armed separatist groups to end abuses against civilians in the Anglophone regions and hold those responsible for abuse accountable,” said Human Rights Watch’s (HRW) Central Africa director Lewis Mudge.

“This…is an opportunity to remind abusers that the world is watching,” he added.

Norwegian Refugee Council’s (NRC) Secretary-General Jan Egeland made similar comments to the Security Council, lamenting on the lack of attention and humanitarian response: “When brutal fighting displaces hundreds of thousands of civilians, it usually sets international alarm bells ringing. But, the shocking unmet needs of tens of thousands of people fleeing violence in South-West and North-West Cameroon has resulted in no systematic mediation efforts, no large relief programme, little media interest and too little pressure on the parties to stop attacking civilians.”

“The collective silence surrounding the atrocities is as shocking as the untold stories are heart-breaking,” he added.

What started as protests against the growing dominance of the French language in anglophone regions in 2016 has turned into a conflict between the government and English-speaking separatists who demand a new independent state of “Ambazonia.”

Cameroonian forces have since allegedly cracked down on separatists and local communities, killing scores of civilians, burning homes, and using torture and incommunicado detention with near total impunity.

For instance on Apr. 30, soldiers killed a 16-year-old boy in the Northwest village of Kikaikelaki. According to witnesses, security forces entered the village and started to shoot indiscriminately.

One man also told HRW that authorities burned down and looted 11 homes in the village, stating: “When the military came, I hid for safety. I watched them steal gallons of fuel from a store and set my entire compound on fire. All I had is gone.”

A few days earlier, soldiers raided a health center in the in the Northwest region of Wum in search for wounded separatists and beat some of the medical staff, forcing the clinic to temporarily close.

“As they didn’t find any boys [separatists] they started beating us. I was hit so bad that I could not eat or swallow,” said one nurse.

The armed separatists have also been complicit in the crisis with reports of assaults on soldiers and kidnapping of people, including students and teachers.

In the past three years, at least 70 schools have been destroyed and over 80 percent of schools remain closed, leaving more than 600,000 children out of school in the country’s English-speaking regions.

As Cameroon becomes one of the fastest-growing displacement and humanitarian crisis in Africa, the UN humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock noted that the level of the crisis is “more alarming than ever.”

“Both the humanitarian and the security situation continue to deteriorate and run the risk of spiralling out of control,” Lowcock told the Security Council.

According to the Under-Secretary-General, the number of people in need of humanitarian assistance has increased 30 percent since 2018 to 4.3 million people today. This means one in six Cameroonians need aid, more than half of whom are children.

In the anglophone Northwest and Southwest regions alone, there are more than 1.3 million people that need aid, eight times as many as the year before.

At the same time, Cameroon’s East and North regions are hosting refugees who fled violence from the neighbouring countries of Nigeria and Central African Republic.

Among the biggest challenges is the lack of funding, Lowcock noted.

In 2018, Cameroon’s humanitarian response plan was just 44 percent funded. This year, only 13 percent of its appeal is funded.

Lowcock highlighted the need to increase awareness of the humanitarian situation, improve financing, and address the underlying causes of the crisis.

Egeland echoed the humanitarian chief’s sentiments, stating: “A group of displaced and disillusioned women I met told me that they felt abandoned by the international community, as well as by the conflict parties. They asked me, where is international solidarity? Where are the African organisations, the donor nations? Where is Europe? This conflict has roots in generations of interference from European powers.”

“The absence of a humanitarian response commensurate to the hundreds of thousands of people in great and unmet need is striking. We are too few humanitarian actors on the ground, and we are gravely underfunded,” he added, noting that the UN country team should be given the necessary financial and human resources.

HRW urged the Security Council to make Cameroon a formal item on its agenda and to press an investigation in order to prosecute those responsible.

Mudge also pointed to the need for the country to allow access and cooperate with international human rights organisations. In April, the Cameroon government denied a HRW researcher entry into the country after documenting a deadly attack by security forces in the Northwest region.

“Cameroon’s move to block a human rights researcher and observers shows its determination to conceal its brutality…the UN Security Council should encourage the country to allow access to international human rights organisations and cooperate with them,” Mudge said.

UN Human Rights Commissioner Michelle Bachelet, who recently visited Cameroon, also raised the issue of the lack of access for international and national humanitarian actors and highlighted the need to act before the situation spirals “completely out of control.”

“I believe there is a clear – if possibly short – window of opportunity to arrest the crises that have led to hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people, as well as the killings and brutal human rights violations and abuses that have affected the northern and western areas of the country,” Bachelet said.

“It will take significant actions on the part of the Government, and substantial and sustained support from the international community – including us in the UN….the stakes are high, not just for Cameroon itself, but for the whole region,” she added.

Armand Loughy is a migrant from Cameroon. Her own experiences pushed her to campaign on migration issues, shifting from being a refugee herself to becoming an activist. Credit: El Mahdi Hannane/IPS

By El Mahdi Hannane
MARRAKECH, Morocco, Dec 11 2018 (IPS)

Seven years ago, when Cameroon began experiencing inter-regional conflict, Armand Loughy, a 55-year old Cameroonian psychiatrist, strapped her youngest child on her back and with her five other children embarked on the dangerous Journey from Cameroon towards Rabat, Morocco’s capital.
They fled the deteriorating security situation in Cameroon, looking for a better life.
Loughy, who is now also a migrant activist based in Morocco, listened attentively to the on-going discussions during the opening ceremony of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) in Marrakech.

Her own experiences pushed her to campaign on migration issues, shifting from being a refugee herself to becoming an activist—one of the most vocal personalities in the Moroccan civil society space.

“We went through the desert and where the fear consumed us. Many of my fellow migrants got hurt by bandits and died—in the most horrible way with their bodies dumped in the desert,” Loughy recalls.

After arriving in Morocco, she faced many difficulties in finding a job before finally securing work at a psychiatric clinic in Rabat.
With a well-paying job, Loughy could easily have forgotten her traumatic journey and suffering and moved on. But she chose not to—her decision to start helping migrants came at the right time as Morocco was also establishing favourable policies on how to handle migrants.

This policy shift, according to Loughy, enabled her to become “a candle that would light up the darkness of migrants.”

In 2014, she founded the Association of Women Migrants in Morocco, working to attract other migrants. Gradually, her association gained respect in the civil society space.

“In the beginning, the children of the poor neighbourhood where I was active threw stones at me,” Loughy says. “But after many months of continuous work, I became familiar and respected by locals and migrants.”

Her organisation is active in the Sidi Musa district of Salé—about 330 km north of Marrakech—where hundreds of migrants occupy small rooms, either working or begging on the streets, and then returning to the ghetto in the evening.

The children of these migrants, some of whom were born in Morocco, until recently had nothing to do. Some accompanied mothers to beg, others played in the neighbourhood all day without any clear future—a painful reality that Loughy and her organisation acted upon.

She presented a proposal to Salé’s Regional Directorate of Education and Training, and her ideas were welcomed. Classrooms were allocated within the public educational institutions for migrants’ children.

These have now become independent departments with their own teaching staff, and now even teach local Moroccan students.

“We are trying to use education as a tool for integration,” Loughy says, adding the association is making a big drive to inform migrants about the importance of education to ensure as many children as possible are enrolled into school.

Many migrants, especially those who do not have residence documents, remain sceptical of these types of initiatives, Loughy says. But the hope is that better educated children of migrants can inspire change at home and between communities.

Loughy dreams of a united African continent and believes that the best way to achieve coexistence among the continent’s peoples is through education and knowledge. After listening to discussions at the GCM about the tools and partnerships needed to give that dream a chance, she will leave Marrakech to return to spreading education among the children of Morocco’s migrants

“We have learnt that when students start living together, then parents can also learn how to coexist,” Loughy says.

• This story was brought to you by IPS with support from the United Nations Foundation . IPS organized capacity building workshops for media in Marrakech.

Returned migrants have something to eat and fill out papers for IOM at Yaounde Nsimalen Airport in Cameroon. Credit: Mbom Sixtus/IPS

By Mbom Sixtus
YAOUNDE, Cameroon, Jun 7 2018 (IPS)

“Sometimes when I’m alone, I still get flashes of the grisly images I saw in the desert. I feared I was going to die out there. The people transporting us were ready to get rid of any of us where necessary,” Njoya Danialo recalled as he narrated the ordeal he endured traveling through the Sahara in search of greener pastures.

He told IPS that when the desert winds get too wild, the smugglers take refuge inside and under their vehicles, while passengers perched on luggage in overloaded pickup trucks are left at the mercy of the deadly, dust-filled wind.

Njoya is one of over 1,300 returnees that IOM, the UN Migration Agency, has repatriated to Cameroon since it started its operation in sub-Saharan Africa in June 2017. Boubacar Seybou, IOM Chief of Mission in Cameroon, told IPS the European Union has set aside 3 million Euros for its migrant reintegration operation in this country.

The operation is carried out in collaboration with officials of the EU Delegation in Cameroon, Cameroon’s ministry of external relations, the ministry of public health, ministry of social affairs and ministry of youth and civic education.

The program was planned to run for three years, facilitating the socioeconomic reintegration of 850 returnees at a cost of 3 million euros. Now Seybou said the program needs to be reviewed as more than 1,000 returnees were registered barely six months after the operation began.

Workers with IOM register returned migrants at Yaounde Nsimalen Airport in Cameroon. Credit: Mbom Sixtus/IPS

Njoya graduated from the Francoise Xavier Vogt football school in Yaounde but never played in a professional club. He claims one is obliged to know someone or pay a bribe to be recruited into a good football club. “That is why I decided to try my luck abroad, especially as a strange illness had attacked my father, causing our family business to crumble. I had to make it on my own,” he said.

Like many of the one million sub-Saharan Africans who have migrated to Europe since 2010, he had a map and a plan. He had high hopes as he navigated his way from Cameroon through Chad, Niger and Benin, until the night he curled up on a street corner in Algeria to sleep. Only then did he realise illegal migrants were not welcome. Like many others, he was forced to leave the country.

“The police arrested many of us and dropped us off at the border in the desert. Many people who walked with us died as I walked on.”

Dubious agents

“Along the trajectory from Niger to Morocco are agents called ‘passeurs’. They offer three possibilities. They can help you get to the Mediterranean where you cross into Spain. They can take you to a detention facility and call your parents for ransom. Or [they will] rob you and abandon you in the forest,” Njoya told IPS.

He was fortunate to get passeurs who helped him travel. He met another migrant from Burkina Faso whowas Spain-bound before being forced to make a U-turn in Algeria. They both struggled to make it to Niamey where the IOM help them return to their various home countries.

But Ramanou Abdou, who was also heading to Spain from Cameroon, told IPS he was not as lucky. The agents, always heavily armed and noted for raping women, drove them into a Savanah forest, robbed them and zoomed off. They all had to struggle to find their way to Niamey where they could get help from IOM, he said.

Like Njoya and others who returned to Cameroon with the help of IOM, Ramanou was offered a package that would facilitate his reintegration. He chose to return to school. He currently studies geography in the University of Dschang.

“I am grateful for the help they offered. I wish they could continue until I obtain my bachelors degree. I also wish they could help me get medical care for the protracted skin disease and stomach problems I returned with. I am still suffering,” he said.

Besides illnesses, Ramanou says many people have a negative impression of those who return from abroad. “Most of my classmates think I am thief. Some think that all returnees are hoodlums or something. Few of them treat me well.”

Like Ramanou, Njoya equally thinks the assistance provided returnees should be stepped up. He was given about 800 euros to start a business which crumbled within a couple of months. He now loads vehicles at a motor park for a living.

“I am saving money to travel abroad through the right track. My dream is still alive and I will make it the right way. I pity those who have left again to follow the same road to perdition in the name of traveling to Europe by land,” he said.

Besides Njoya and Ramanou, another returnee used his seed capital from IOM to start a small business is Ekani Awono. He opened up a coffee shop, but now tells IPS the money was too little to keep his business alive.

The beneficiaries who spoke to IPS say their peers who left the IOM office in Niamey and returned to the Ivory Coast claim to have been given as much as 3,000 euros to start sustainable businesses.

“But in Cameroon, we are constrained to submit business plans for funding limited to FCFA 500,000,” said one of them who preferred not to be named.

But Boubacar Seybou of OIM says the business plans are approved by a steering committee consisting of the funder and government ministries. He told IPS that IOM makes sure reintegration packages are sustainable. He also pointed out that there are many returnees whose businesses are doing well.

Apart from financial aid, IOM and the government provide medical check-ups and psychosocial assistance to returnees when they arrive home, according to Edimo Mbappe of the ministry of social affairs.

“Some women who were raped in the forest, deserts and camps and get here pregnant. Alongside traumatised boys and girls, they are given psychosocial support before we let them move into the community,” she told IPS.

IOM and the government has organised a series of activities, including radio and TV shows, photo exhibitions and musical concerts to dissuade would-be migrants from attempting to travel abroad illegally. They are equally trying to educate the public to absorb returnees and reject the stereotypes that make them feel uncomfortable.

Police block rioters in front of the Divisional Officers building in Kumba, Southwest Region, Cameroon, amid an ongoing political crisis in the country’s Anglophone region. Credit: Mbom Sixtus/IPS

By Mbom Sixtus
YAOUNDE, Sep 26 2017 (IPS)

“For too long we have been afraid to speak out against injustices and all sorts of atrocities happening in Cameroon, thinking it [the silence] will protect us. If I were to repeat what I have done on Canal 2 English [television], I will do it again. I now stand ready for any eventuality,” says Cameroonian journalist Elie Smith.

The outspoken journalist told IPS he was forced to resign from Cameroon’s leading private media house following intense pressure from government. The CEO of the station had suspended a talk show, Tough Talk, Smith co-hosted with Divine Ntaryike and Henry Kejang. He said Prime Minister Philemon Yang and Justice Minister Laurent Esso wanted him fired.Journalist Tim Finian Njua was brutally attacked and taken away by unknown men in Bamenda. He only realised they were security officers when he was brought to Yaounde.

The trio were accused of being too critical of government, especially during reporting and analysis of an ongoing 11-month-long protest in English-speaking Cameroon. Protesters had adopted civil disobedience as their trump card, keeping schools and courts in the region closed since Nov. 21, 2016.

Smith, who had refused to travel from the financial capital, the port city of Douala, to Yaounde, the country’s political capital, to apologise to the prime minister for being too critical of government, was later told to stick to a program called World Views and refrain from any discussion of domestic politics.

“On Sep. 4 when schools were expected to resume in Cameroon, protests marred the resumption in English-speaking Cameroon. Yet, the CEO asked me to lie on air that resumption was effective in order to please government. I refused. That is when we both realised we can no longer work together,” he told IPS.

Despite losing his job, Smith is among the few journalists who have avoided prison in a government clampdown on reporters since the crisis erupted in English-speaking Cameroon. Others have been jailed and tortured, while some are currently in exile. For the most part, security forces target English-speaking journalists whom government accuses of supporting or sympathising with “terrorists”.

Journalists or terrorists?

Cameroon was first colonised by the Germans in 1884. After the defeat of Germany in World War I, France and Britain shared the territory under a mandate from the League of Nations, with Britain keeping one-fifth of it.  A federation of two states with equal status was declared in 1961, but was abolished in 1972 following a referendum – its conduct remains contested to this day.

Citizens of the former trust territory of British Southern Cameroons who have over the years, complained of marginalisation and lack of control over their assets, rose up in October 2016 in two ranks- some demanding a return to federation while others demand total independence. Both camps however agree on the same complaints; insignificant placements of English-speaking Cameroonians in administration, and inequality which they say led to impoverishment of their region and its population and subjugation of their educational and cultural heritage. At least 13 people have been shot dead since the crisis erupted.

A controversial law on the suppression of acts of terrorism in Cameroon enacted in December 2014 is being used to try citizens arrested in relation to the protests. Journalists arrested for reporting on the crisis are equally tried at the military tribunal under the same law which forbids public meetings, street protests or any action that the government deems to be disturbing the peace.

Tim Finian Njua, one of eight journalists arrested in relation to the ongoing crisis, says he is finding it difficult readjusting after spending over six months in jail. The editor of Life Time newspaper, Njua was freed from the Kondengui Prison in Yaounde alongside Atia Tilarious and two other journalists, and close to 50 protesters, following a presidential clemency in August.

Njua told IPS he was brutally attacked and taken away by unknown men in Bamenda. He only realised they were security officers when he was brought to Yaounde. “They said our newspaper reported an incident that may provoke or aggravate rebellion. I was charged with acts of terrorism, insurrection, secession and propagation of false information.”

Atia Tilarious, who had earlier been arrested and released for hosting a TV debate on the uprising, had gone to Kondengui after his first arrest, this time in the company of Amos Fofung, a reporter for The Guardian Post newspaper.

Fofung told IPS “I was let out of prison six months later. I was told the state attorney sent apologies for keeping me in jail without charge or evidence. I walked out and later travelled back to Buea. It made me bolder. I am still objective in my reporting.”

Meanwhile Fonjah Hanson Muki, proprietor of Cameroon Report, was arrested alongside five of his staff in the town of Bamenda, which is regarded as the epicentre of the uprising. They were accused by a military tribunal of propagatng false information. They were also accused of receiving money from secessionists abroad to push a separatist agenda through their reporting. The last of them, arrested on July 25, was released on Sept. 18. The media owner was ordered never to report on the ongoing crisis.

Skewed regulator

Before the clampdown on journalists reporting the crisis, the national communication council had issued a warning to journalists in the country, tacitly outlawing all media debates on the return to federation. Though the council’s decision preceded a speech by President Paul Biya making the topic taboo, French-language media organs continued the debate, while English-language tabloids piped down.

“You know we are not the same. There are things Le Messager or Le Jour can report and go free but The Guardian Post or The Sun will be sanctioned for doing same. The public does not understand, that is why you find citizens criticising us on social media, saying we are chicken-hearted,” a newspaper publisher who asked for anonymity told IPS.

The council has been criticised for siding with state officials and influential citizens. It meted out sanctions on Sep. 22, suspending some 20 media organs, publishers and journalists for periods ranging from one to six months. Most of the decisions were verdicts on complaints filed by government officials like the Minister of Forestry and influential citizens like Cameroonian football star and billionaire, Samuel Eto’o Fils.

Ten-year jail sentence for reporting on terrorism

Ahmed Aba, Cameroon correspondent for the Hausa service of the French international radio, RFI, is currently serving a ten-year jail term. He was found guilty of “laundering of proceeds of terrorism” and “non-denunciation of terrorism” by the military tribunal in Yaounde.

The verdict, handed down this year after two years of pre-trial detention, was appealed by his lawyer, Clement Nakong. Aba told IPS at the prison yard in Yaounde that he is innocent and hopes to be set free after the appeal. He said he was accused of working for the Nigeria-based Boko Haram terror group.

But the outcome of an appeal is uncertain as a government spokesman bluntly declared at a press conference that RFI supports terrorists. The appeal hearing was expected to begin among others in mid-August this year, but Aba’s name was taken off the list.

International and local institutions and activists have been advocating for his release. He was recently named one of the winners of the 2017 International Press Freedom Award by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

Another journalist, Gubai Gatama, was placed under investigation and interrogated at the police headquarters for reporting on Boko Haram.

“Cameroon is clearly using anti-state legislation to silence criticism in the press,” said CPJ Africa Program Director Angela Quintal in a statement. “When you equate journalism with terrorism, you create an environment where fewer journalists are willing to report on hard news for fear of reprisal. Cameroon must amend its laws and stop subjecting journalists–who are civilians–to military trial.”

On Sep. 20, CPJ issued a report, written by Quintal, warning that in addition to detaining journalists, authorities have banned news outlets deemed sympathetic to the Anglophone protesters, shut down internet in regions experiencing unrest, and prevented outside observers, including CPJ, from accessing the country by delaying the visa process.

UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi is received at the Minawao Camp in Cameroon’s Far North region on Dec. 15, 2016, where some 60,000 refugees have fled attacks by Boko Haram. Credit: Mbom Sixtus/IPS

By Mbom Sixtus
MINAWAO CAMP, Cameroon, Dec 16 2016 (IPS)

Tears spring to Aichatou Njoya’s eyes as she recalls the day Islamic militants from Boko Haram arrived on her doorstep in Nigeria.

“It was on May 24, 2013. My husband was sleeping in his room while I was on the other side of the house with our six children. The youngest was only one month old,” she mutters, pausing to collect herself.The funding gap for refugees and IDPs in Cameroon now stands at 62.4 million dollars.

Njoya told IPS when the armed insurgents broke into the house, they grabbed her husband and dragged him into her room. “They brought him in front of us and put a machete to his neck and asked him if he was going to convert from Christianity to Islam. They asked thrice, and thrice he refused. Then they slew him right in front of me and our children,” she said, still holding back tears.

The widowed refugee said an argument ensued among the assailants as to whether to spare her life or not. They finally agreed to let her live. The next day she escaped with her children to the hills and trekked for several days until they reached the border with Cameroon, where the UNHCR had vehicles to transport refugees to the camp. The camp had just been set up, she says.

Njoya, now 36, has been living in the Minawao refugee camp in Cameroon’s Far North region for more than three and a half years now, with scant hope of returning anytime soon.

IPS spoke with Njoya and others during the Dec. 15 visit of Filippo Grandi, High Commissioner for the United Nations Refugee agency UNHCR, to the camp. Grandi called for the financial empowerment of Nigerian refugees to help them cope with insufficient humanitarian aid.

The camp hosts about 60,000 Nigerians who have fled their homes since 2011 because of attacks carried out by the Islamist terror group, Boko Haram.

Grandi spoke with refugees, representatives of national and international NGOs, and officials of the Cameroonian government who gathered to welcome him. Cameroon is the third country he is visiting as part of his tour of countries of the Lake Chad Basin affected by the Boko Haram insurgency.

Grandi said his visit was intended to encourage donors to provide more aid to affected countries and governments to work together to reinstate peace in the region and facilitate the return of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) their homes.

“We have made efforts to improve aid, but aid is still insufficient. I have listened to complaints of these refugee women who say they do not have any income generation activities and I think the UNHCR and its partners should begin working in that direction. Help them help themselves,” he said.

He had just listened to representatives of the refugees and refugee women discussing the difficulties they face on a daily basis, including food and water shortages, scarcity of wood, insufficient medicines, and insufficient classroom and medical staff in health units in the camp.

Growing population, funding gap aggravate living conditions

According to Njoya, and every other refugee who talked to IPS, including Jallo Mohamed, Bulama Adam and Ayuba Fudama, living conditions are growing worse by the day. They all complain of joblessness. Njoya says even when they leave the camp with refugee certificates as IDs, Cameroonian security officers still stop them from going out.

“This hinders the success of the income generation activities we are yearning for,” she said.

“When we just got here, they gave each refugee 13 kg of rice monthly. It was later reduced to 10 and last month (November 2016) it dropped further. The rationing for wood has also declined.  Nowadays when you go to the health unit for headache, they give you paracetamol. If you have a fever, they give you paracetamol. If you have stomach ache or anything else, they give you the same tablets. And when you go there at night, there is no one on duty,” says Jallo Mohamed.

Reports say there are periods when as many as 50 births are recorded per week in the Minawao camp.

“You can’t blame them. They sleep early every night because they do not have TV sets or other forms of entertainment. That is why the birth rate is as it is,” said a medic at the camp who asked not to be named.

Cameroon currently hosts more than 259,000 refugees from the Central African Republic and 73,747 Nigerians. Funders led by the U.S., Japan, EU, Spain, Italy, France and Korea were able to raise only 37 per cent of a total of 98.6million dollars required in assistance for refugees and IDPs in Cameroon this year – a funding gap of 62.4 million dollars, according to the UNHCR factsheet.

The funding gap for requirements of Nigerian refugees, according to the UNHCR, stands at 29.7 million dollars. Nevertheless, High Commissioner Grandi remains positive that empowering refugees to earn incomes will improve living standards at the Minawao Camp.

Regarding the wood shortage, he said he saw fuel-efficient cooking stoves in Niger and Chad and will encourage stakeholders in Cameroon to introduce the models in the camp. He also reassured refugees that an ongoing water project will provide the camp and host communities with clean pipe-borne water.

The High Commissioner’s mission to Cameroon also includes the launching of 2017 Regional Refugee Response Plan for the Nigeria Refugee Situation.

Six million Cameroonians depend on the cocoa sector for a living. Credit: Mbom Sixtus/IPS

By Mbom Sixtus
KONYE, Cameroon, Aug 28 2016 (IPS)

Tanchenow Daniel fears he will lose more than half a tonne of his cocoa yield during the next harvest at the end of this month.

He usually harvests no less than 1.5 tonnes of cocoa beans during the mid-crop season, but he says every farmer in the Manyu Division of Cameroon’s South West Region is witnessing a catastrophe this year because of a prolonged dry season.

“The effects of droughts were worse this year because people had been ignorantly cutting down trees which provided shade to cocoa. Many trees have been dried up this year while bush fires dealt us a heavy blow,” Tanchenow told IPS, adding that though he is a victim, others have it even worse, including a friend who lost an entire farm of five hectares.

Adding insult to injury, prices fell in August, ranging from 1,000 CFA francs (1.72 dollars) per kg of cocoa to 1,200 CFA francs – down from prices as high as 1,700 CFA in July – with producers saying buying was delayed because of the drought.

Chief Orock Mbi of Meme division in Cameroon’s South West region tells IPS that he and other cocoa growers in the division also witnessed “a drastic drop” in cocoa yields in the past few months. He hopes for new methods to protect this key crop from the effects of climate change.

The South West Region of Cameroon is among the major cocoa-producing regions of Cameroon, along with the Center, East and South regions.

Data from the National Cocoa and Coffee Board suggests the drop in cocoa production was nationwide. The data indicates 7,610 tonnes of cocoa were exported in March. In April, the country exported 5,780 tonnes and the figure further dropped to 3,205 tonnes by the end of June.

Farmers pin hopes on cooperatives, new varieties

Cameroon is the world’s fifth-largest producer of cocoa. It has exported 239.7 million kgs this year of which 97 percent was grade II, according to statistics published on Aug. 3 by the Cocoa and Coffee Board.

The country’s minister of trade believes for this position to be maintained, farmers burdened by the undesirable effects of climate change must join cooperative unions. It is through these cooperative societies that government distributes farm inputs such as pesticides and improved variety seeds to smallholder farmers.

Trade Minister Luc Magloire Mbarga Atangana addressed hundreds of farmers in Konye municipality on Aug. 3 as he launched the 2016/2017 cocoa marketing season.

He told the farmers in Cameroon’s third-largest cocoa producing locality that cooperative unions would help to constantly improve on the quality of their cocoa and protect them from deceitful cross-border buyers from neighbouring countries that pay them less than the worth of their produce.

Clementine Ananga Messina, Deputy Minister in charge of Rural Development in the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, says cooperatives would help farmers make the best of aid offered in their localities, boost their bargaining power and improve gains for the six million Cameroonians who depend on the cocoa sector for a living.

Besides distribution, cooperatives sensitise farmers on the use of new varieties and techniques.

Zachy Asek Ojong, manager of the Konye Area Farmers Cooperative, tells IPS they have provided immense support to local members. “Farmers can attest to the assistance they have had from the cooperative society,” says Ojong.

Esapa, president of South West Farmers’ Cooperative, says “cocoa farmers have never really witnessed the effects of climate change until this year. So now we are beginning to work with common initiative groups in sensitising farmers, especially cocoa and coffee growers.”

He tells IPS the cooperative is now, among other things, advising farmers who had cut down trees to replant them in order to shade their cocoa and coffee farms. “The sunshine this year was so wild that people who set fires on their farms ended up burning many other farms around them. We are reinforcing campaigns against bush fires,” he said.

Tanchenow says he has planted 4,000 cocoa trees of a new variety commonly called “Barombi,” a name coined from an organisation that introduced the variety in the division. He says that two years in, yields are better and “Barombi is the hope for our cocoa’s future.”

However, he does not trust cooperative societies and calls them unreliable and tainted by favoritism.

“People in my area who depended on them for pesticides were shocked to find out selected individuals were called up by a different organisation to receive farm inputs from the agriculture ministry,” Tanchenow complained.

Farmers fall ever deeper in debt

The National Cocoa and Coffee Board says Cameroon’s cocoa was exported to eight countries, including the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Italy and Spain –  with the Netherlands alone importing 76.30 percent.

Still, farmers in Konye live without roads and electricity and depend on solar energy and firewood for drying and processing their cocoa. Some of them prefer to hang onto old ways of financing and sales despite the advantages of adhering to cooperatives.

Edward Ekoko Bokoba tells IPS that many farmers still prefer “pledging” their farms as means of financing, while others operate outside the major buyers of cocoa.

“Climate change is impacting pledging negatively, but some farmers seem to trust the system more than the micro-loans from the cooperatives,” he says.

“Pledging” is a system where farmers sign agreements with individuals who pay for farm inputs or lend them money. At the end of the harvest and sales, the funder’s money is reimbursed with an agreed quantity of cocoa or cash in interest.

Bokoba, who currently is expecting profits from a “pledge,” says when the dry season is prolonged or when the weather is distorted, as was the case this year, farmers are forced to borrow more money and may end up handing over all their harvest to creditors.  Some creditors are cocoa merchants who claim exclusive rights to purchase all their debtor’s cocoa and by so doing, dictate the price.

Another farmer, Ako Kingsley Tanyi, says though government is condemning sales of cocoa to trans-border buyers, some farmers prefer to sell their cocoa to Nigerian buyers who pay better prices. “Cocoa sold to Nigerians does not go through the Douala seaport and government does not have the figures,” he explains.

The performance of Cameroon’s cocoa has been as unstable as weather conditions in recent years. And the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) forecasted in 2011 that climate change will lead to a global slump in cocoa production by the year 2030.

Many hope that relief might be forthcoming from the United Nations Green Climate Fund, which is supposed to raise 100 billion dollars per year by 2020 to assist developing countries in climate change adaptation and mitigation once their country-based COP21 plans have been fine-tuned.

CIAT, whose mission is to reduce hunger and poverty, and improve human nutrition in the tropics, says the coffee and cocoa sectors could be the first to benefit from this fund.

In the same optimistic regard, Cameroon’s trade minister holds that government’s target to export 600,000 tonnes by 2020 would be met.

Farmers and activists in Cameroon say a jail sentence handed down on an environmentalist who exposed land-grabbing by a multinational agro-industrial company, sends a dangerous signal to communities trying to protect their land and resources.

Nasako Bessingi, Director of Struggle to Economize Future Environment, SEFE, was sentenced on November 3, by a court in Mundemba, a small village in Cameroon’s southwest region. The SG-SOC company, a subsidiary of the New York-based Herakles Farms and two of his former employees sued him for defamation.

The verdict: a fine of just over 1,800 dollars or 3-years imprisonment. He was also ordered to pay damages of about 18,000 dollars to the two civil parties and costs of about 364 dollars. Nasako was given 24 hours to pay the fine otherwise he faces jail for 3 years.

Nasako says his NGO has paid the fine “Just to have time to do other things while our lawyer Adolf Malle follows up an appeal at the southwest regional Court of Appeal.”

Recounting his plight to IPS, he said Herakles Farms sued him following government’s suspension of its activities. He also revealed to IPS he had written petitions against the company in which he accused its officials of lying to villagers.

In his complaints, he notified the government of the company’s activities, clearing, felling trees and planting nurseries pending authorization, which he called illegal. He said he had also reported claims by the multinational firm that it had authorization to acquire 73,000 hectares of land on a 99 year-lease at the cost at about 50 cents per hectare per year.

“My complaint was filed in August 2012 and in November 2013, President Paul Biya signed a decree, limiting the company to 19,843 hectares of land in Cameroon and to pay seven dollars per hectare per year.” The company abandoned the project.

Going by Nasako, the initial suit filed by the company, charged him with inciting the government to suspend the activities of the company, but during the proceedings which took close to two years, the company modified its claims and emphasized on defamation.

Nasako led journalists from both the local and international media to cover conflicts between Herakles Farms (SG-SOC) and communities of the Mundemba sub-division in the southwest of Cameroon. He was attacked in the forest a few days later on his way to an interior village in the subdivision for a sensitization campaign.

In his report of the incident, a copy of which he forwarded to Bruce Wrobel, (now deceased), the CEO of the company at the time, stating that he had identified the attackers as workers of his company.

“They used the report against me claiming I defamed the company, whereas there were many witnesses at the scene of the event,” Nasako said. “I filed a complaint in court against the company, but they too filed one at the same time and for some reasons, the court decided to listen to the multinational firm.”

Several environmental NGOs, some of which were equally against the land grabbing attempts of Herakles Farms, have denounced the verdict which to them is unjust. Nasako says he is comforted by officials of local and international NGOs including Nature Cameroon, Cultural Survival, the African Coalition Against Land Grabbing, Green Peace among other sympathizers.

To Samuel Nguiffo, Coordinator of the Yaounde-based Center for Environment and Development, CED, “The conviction of Nasako Besingi, which follows a series of other procedures, suggests a desire to intimidate environmental activists, in a context marked by the proliferation of investments in land and natural resources, which strongly encroach on village land.”

A statement from the Amy Moas, a US-based Senior Forest Campaigner and Eric Ini, an Africa Forest Campaigner for Green Peace, says Nasako is “Guilty for nothing more than exercising his democratic right to protest.” They hold that Herakles Farms has consistently worked to silence its critics and that the activist has been intimidated and assaulted in recent years.

Chief Alexander Ekperi of Esoki, one of the villages affected by the Herakles agro-industrial project told IPS that as a traditional ruler, he was a middleman between the investors and the indigenes. He said his people depend on farming and without land they will be idle and poor.

“I am 100 per cent in support of Nasako. The company concealed information from us. We were fooled our village will be developed but Nasako and other environmentalist educated us on the project and we realized the company was going to exploit both timber and non-timber products, grab our farmland and leave people stranded. We were not even aware of how much land the company was grabbing,” he said.

The traditional ruler complained, “Even our people, like Dr. Blaise Mekole who were close to the investors have vanished and no longer communicate with us. People are looking up to me to pay for some work they did for the company, whereas I was given a fake ECOBANK cheque. It was a mafia (incident) and we regret the person who exposed it is getting a heavy sentence.”

Peter Okpo Wa-namolongo who lives in one of the villages in the Korup National Park, believes Nasako’s verdict was unjust. “I don’t know if some of our elite are truly Cameroonians, because when it comes to money, they don’t feel for their own people. The investors give us oil, food and beer and pay the elite huge amounts of bribe money for our land,” he said.

Wa-namolongo pointed out, “These big companies have money. They pay their way into places and I’m sure even the judges received their money. I am strongly against what is happening to Nasako.”

Mosembe Cornelius, owner of a vast farmland that was coveted by Harakles farms told IPS that “The main problem is that government has incomplete information about the crisis. I would have lost my own seven hectares if environmentalists were not here to help.”

Before Mosember could finish his statement, another villager, Edwin Njio joined in and said, “Environmentalists helped us meet international lawyers who exposed the illegality of the company. We would be dead without our land. We the villagers are very angry.”

He also said, “We were treated as animals but we now understand our rights. If Nasako is convicted then the whole of Cameroon should be jailed. Even our chiefs (traditional rulers) treated us as if we don’t deserve respect.”

But Chief Eben Joseph sees things conversely. He is one of the traditional rulers in whose jurisdiction Herakles Farms’ project was being set up. “This project was going to bring development to my village. The head of state wants Cameroon to be emergent by 2035. How can we get there without foreign investments?” he asked.

Quizzed on the disparities in the amount the company paid per hectare on the annual basis and what was later determined by the head of state, as well as the surface area of land they initially wanted to exploit and the limitations by the 2013 Presidential Decree, Chief Eben stated he is a businessman.

“One cannot invest where he will not make profit. You go where you will make the highest profit. Gulf Oil had a permit to exploit oil in the Bakassi Peninsular in the 1970s, they claimed to the government the oil was little and sold their permit to Pecten which then exploited oil for about 30 years. Pecten recently sold the same area to Addax Petroleum which is still exploiting oil where Gulf Oil had claimed had little oil. It’s just business,” he said.

The traditional ruler said the government would have been collecting taxes from Herakles Farms while villagers enjoy some royalties. “Nasako and I have been friends for long, he always sees things from his own unique way. But he is not above the law. I will not say whether his court sentence was right or wrong.”

To Chief Orume, another traditional ruler in the region, “I knew this company will bring development to my village which is in a conservative area with community forests and a national park. I knew they would construct roads to ferry their produce out of the forest. But I am surprised they have just disappeared and we don’t know when they will be back.”

Though grappling with an appeal, Nasako told IPS that he has received complaints from laid-off workers of Herakles Farms. “They made severance payments to some workers in July 2015 promising to pay 70 other workers on September 30 but did not,” he said.

The company wrote an appeal to Cameroon’s presidency on October 3, pleading the government should intervene in court cases against the company. Jonathan Watts, the company’s Chief Operations Manager, sent a letter saying the company spent funds on court cases and said that the government should help dismiss the cases so that the company could focus on producing palm oil, which is a disputed product in ecological circles as it destroys forests.

(End)

Scene from Ndanifor Permaculture Eco-village in Bafut in Cameroon’s Northwest Region, the country’s first and only eco-village which is based on the principle that the answer to food insecurity lies in sustainable and organic methods of farming. Credit: Mbom Sixtus/IPS

By Mbom Sixtus
YAOUNDE, Aug 2 2015 (IPS)

Marking a shift away from the growing trend of abandoning sustainable life styles and drifting from traditional customs and routines, Joshua Konkankoh is a Cameroonian farmer with a vision – that the answer to food insecurity lies in sustainable and organic methods of farming.

Konkankoh, who left a job with the government to pursue that vision, founded Better World Cameroon, which works to develop local sustainable agricultural strategies that utilise indigenous knowledge systems for mitigating food crises and extreme poverty, and is now running Cameroon’s first and only eco-village – the Ndanifor Permaculture Eco-village in Bafut in Cameroon’s Northwest Region.

“Biodiversity was protected by traditional beliefs. Felling of some trees and killing of certain animal species in certain forests were prohibited. They were protected by gods and ancestors. We want to protect such heritage” – Joshua Konkankoh
Talking with IPS, Konkankoh explained how the eco-village organically fertilises soil through the planting and pruning of nitrogen-fixing trees planted on farms where mixed cropping is practised. When the trees mature, the middles are cut out and the leaves used as compost. The trees are then left to regenerate and the same procedure is repeated the following season.

“Here we train youths and farmers on permanent agriculture or permaculture,” he said. “I call it ‘permaculture the African way’ because the concept was coined by scientists and we are adapting it to our old ways of farming and protecting the environment.”

While government is keeping its distance from the project, Konkankoh said that local councils and traditional rulers are encouraging people to embrace the initiative, which is said to be ecologically, socially, economically and spiritually friendly.

“I was active during the U.N. Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. In studying the reason why many countries failed to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), we realised that there were some gaps but we also found out that permaculture was a solution to sustainability, especially in Africa. So I felt we could contextualize the concept – think globally and act locally.”

The permaculture used at the eco-village makes maximum use of limited agricultural land, and villagers are taught how to plant more than one crop on the same piece of land, use a common organic fertiliser and obtain high yields.

Farmers, said Konkankoh, are encouraged to trade and not seek aid, to benefit from their investment and prevent middlemen and multinationals from scooping up a large share of their earnings. The organic agriculture practised and taught in the eco-village is a blend of culture and fair trade initiatives.

Joshua Konkankoh, founder of Cameroon’s first and only eco-village, shows off some nitrogen-fixing trees. Credit: Mbom Sixtus/IPS

“We encourage rural farmers to guarantee food sovereignty by producing what they also consume directly and not cash crops like cocoa and coffee.”

Farmers are trained in the importance of manure, of producing it and selling it to other farmers, as well in innovative techniques of erosion control, water management, windbreaks, inter-cropping and food foresting.

Konkankoh also told IPS that it was a mistake to have left the spiritual principle out of the MDG programme. “Biodiversity was protected by traditional beliefs.  Felling of some trees and killing of certain animal species in certain forests were prohibited. They were protected by gods and ancestors. We want to protect such heritage.”

The eco-village has started a project to replant spiritual forests with 4,000 medicinal and fruit trees in a bid to reduce CO2 emissions.

Fon Abumbi II, traditional ruler of Bafut, the village which hosts the Ndanifor Permaculture Eco-village, believes that the type of cultivation of fruits, vegetables and medicinal plants used by the eco-village will improve the health of local people.

He is also convinced that with many firms around the world producing health care products with natural herbs, the demand for the products of the eco-village is high, guaranteeing a promising future for the villagers who cultivate them.

Houses in the eco-village are constructed with local materials such as earth bags and mud bricks, and grass for the roofs. Domestic appliances such as ovens and stoves are earthen and homemade.

Sonita Mbah Neh, project administrator at eco-village’s demonstration centre, said that the earthen stoves bit not only reduce the impact of climate change by minimising the use of wood for combustion but the local women who make then also earn a living by selling them.

Lanci Abel, mayor of the Bafut municipality, told IPS that his council is mobilising citizens to embrace permaculture. “You know, when an idea is new, people only embrace it when it is recommended by authorities. We are carrying out communication and sensitisation of the population to return to traditional methods of farming as taught at the eco-village.”

Abel also had something to say about the performance of genetically modified plantain seedlings planted by the Ministry of Agriculture at the start of the 2015 farming season in Cameroon’s Southwest Region, which recorded a miserable 30 percent yield.

The issue had been raised by Mbanya Bolevie, a member of parliament from the region who asked Minister of Agriculture Essimi Menye about the failure of the modern seeds during the June session of parliament.

Julbert Konango, Littoral Regional Delegate for the Chamber of Agriculture, said the failure was due the fact that seeds are often old because “there is inadequate finance for agricultural research organisations in Cameroon as well as a shortage of engineers in the sector,” a sign that the country not fully prepared for second-generation agriculture.

Commenting on the incident, Abel said that citizens using natural seeds and compost would not have faced these problems, adding that “besides the possibility of failure of chemical fertilisers, they also pollute the soil.”

The eco-village, which would like to become a model for Cameroon and West Africa, is a member of the Global Ecovillage Network.

Edited by Phil Harris   

The lack of jobs after graduation frequently pushes Cameroonian girls into searching for work opportunities, sometimes overseas and sometimes with horrific consequences. Credit: Ngala Killian Chimtom/IPS

By Ngala Killian Chimtom
YAOUNDE, Jul 15 2015 (IPS)

Her lips are quavering her hands trembling. Susan (not her real name) struggles to suppress stubborn tears, but the outburst comes, spontaneously, and the tears stream down her cheeks as she sobs profusely.

The story of this 28-year-old’s servitude in Kuwait is mind-boggling. Between her sobs, she tells IPS how she left Cameroon two years ago in search of a job in Kuwait.

“I saw job opportunities advertised on billboards in town. The posters announced jobs such as nurses and housemaids in Kuwait. As a nurse and without a job in Cameroon, I decided to take the chance.”"We were herded off to a small room. There were many other girls there: Ghanaians, Nigerians and Tunisians … [then] bidders came and we were sold off like property" – Susan, a young Cameroonian women who escaped from slavery in Kuwait

With the help of an agent whose contact details she found on the billboard, Susan found herself on a plane, bound for Kuwait.

She was excited at the prospect of earning up to 250,000 CFA francs (420 dollars) a month. That is what the agent had told her, and it was a mouth-watering sum compared with the roughly 75 dollars she would have been earning in Cameroon, if she had a job.

“We work in liaison with companies in the Middle East, so that when these ladies go, they don’t start looking for jobs,” Ernest Kongnyuy, an agent in Yaounde told IPS.

But the story changed dramatically when Susan, along with 46 other Cameroonian girls, arrived in Kuwait on Nov. 8, 2013.

“We were herded off to a small room. There were many other girls there: Ghanaians, Nigerians and Tunisians,” then “bidders came and we were sold off like property.”

Susan was taken away by an Egyptian man. “I think I got a taste of hell in his house,” she says, tears streaming down her cheeks.

She would begin work at five in the morning and go to bed after midnight, very often sleeping without having eaten.

Very frequently, she tells IPS, the man tried to rape her but when she threatened to report the case to the police, she met with a wry response from her tormentor. “He told me he would pay the police to rape me and then kill me, and the case wouldn’t go anywhere.”

Cut off from all communication with the outside world, Susan says that she found solace only in God. “I prayed … I cried out to God for help,” she recalls.

Susan’s is not an isolated case. Brenda, another Cameroonian lucky enough to escape, has a similar story. She had to wash the pets of her master, which included cats and snakes.

“I was sharing the same toilet with cats … I called them my brothers, because they were the only “persons” with whom I conversed.”

Pushed to the limits, both girls told their employers that they were not ready to work any longer. Brenda says that when she insisted, she was thrown out of the house.

“At that time I was frail, I was actually dying and I didn’t know where to go.” After trekking for two days, she found the Central African Republic’s embassy and slept for two days in front of it before she was rescued.

Susan was locked in the boot of a car and taken to the agent who had brought her from the airport.

“Events moved so fast and I found myself spending one week in immigration prison and an additional three days in deportation prison,” she says.

When both girls were finally put on a flight bound for Cameroon, all their property had been seized, except for their passports and the clothes they were wearing.

The scale of the problem is troubling. According to the 2013 Walk Free Global Index of Slavery, about three-quarters of a million people are enslaved in the Middle East and North Africa.

The report indicates that for the past seven years, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have been ranked as Tier 3 countries for human trafficking and labour abuses. Tier 3 countries are those whose governments do not fully comply with the minimum standards in human trafficking and are not making significant efforts to do so.

Apart from Africa, people from India, Nepal, Eritrea, Uzbekistan, etc. … “migrate voluntarily for domestic work, convinced of the employment agencies’ promises of lucrative jobs,” said the report.

“Upon entering the country, they find themselves deceived and enslaved – within the bounds of a legal sponsorship system.”

Susan and Brenda are now back home, but they are suffering from the trauma of their horrible experience in Kuwait.

The Trauma Centre for Victims of Human Trafficking in Cameroon has been working to bring relief to the women. “We try to make them feel at home,” says Beatrice Titanji, National Vice-President of the Centre.

“They have been exposed to bad treatment. They have been called animals. They have been told they stink, and when they enter the car or a room, a spray is used to take away the supposed odour … I just can’t fathom seeing my child treated like that,” she told IPS.

She called on the government to investigate and prosecute the agents, create jobs and mount guard at airports to discourage Cameroonians from going to look for jobs in the Middle East.

Edited by Phil Harris   

Zambian cotton grower sitting on his bales. Some African governments and local cotton producers have high hopes that GM technology will boost African competitiveness in the dog-eat-dog world that characterises the global cotton market. Credit: Nebert Mulenga/IPS

By Haidee Swanby
MELVILLE, South Africa, Jun 15 2015 (IPS)

Genetically modified (GM) cotton has been produced globally for almost two decades, yet to date only three African countries have grown GM cotton on a commercial basis – South Africa, Burkina Faso and Sudan.

African governments have been sceptical of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) for decades and have played a key role historically in ensuring that international law – the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety – takes a precautionary stance towards genetic engineering in food and agriculture.

They have also imposed various restrictions and bans on the cultivation and importation of GMOs, including on genetically modified (GM) food aid.

But now resistance to GM cultivation is crumbling as a number of other African countries such as Malawi, Ghana, Swaziland and Cameroon appear to be on the verge of allowing their first cultivation of GM cotton, with Nigeria and Ethiopia planning to follow suit in the next two to three years.“Scrutiny of actual experiences [with GM cotton] reveals a tragic tale of crippling debt, appalling market prices and a technology prone to failure in the absence of very specific and onerous management techniques, which are not suited to smallholder production”

Some African governments and local cotton producers have high hopes that GM technology will boost African competitiveness in the dog-eat-dog world that characterises the global cotton market.

At the moment African cotton productivity is declining – it now stands at only half the world average – while global productivity is increasing. The promise of improving productivity and reducing pesticide use through the adoption of GM cotton is thus compelling.

However, African leaders and cotton producers need to take a close look at how GM cotton has fared in South Africa and Burkina Faso to date, particularly its socioeconomic impact on smallholder farmers.

Scrutiny of actual experiences reveals a tragic tale of crippling debt, appalling market prices and a technology prone to failure in the absence of very specific and onerous management techniques, which are not suited to smallholder production.

As stated by a farmer during a Malian public consultation on GMOs, “What’s the point of encouraging us to increase yields with GMOs when we can’t get a decent price for what we already produce?”

In Burkina Faso, the tide turned against GM cotton after just five seasons as low yields and low quality fibres persisted. In South Africa, GM cotton brought devastating debts to smallholders and the local credit institution went bust. Last season, smallholders contributed to less than three percent of South Africa’s total production.

In Malawi, Monsanto has already applied to the government for a permit to commercialise Bollgard II, its GM pest resistant cotton, to which there has been a strong reaction from civil society and an alliance of organisations has submitted substantive objections.

Even Malawi’s cotton industry, the Cotton Development Trust (CDT), has publically voiced its concerns over a number of issues, including inadequate field trials, the high cost of GM seed and related inputs, and blurred intellectual property arrangements.

In addition, CDT has expressed unease over the potential development of pest resistance and the inevitable applications of herbicide chemicals.

Regional economic communities (RECs), such as the Common Market for East and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the Economic Community for West African States (ECOWAS), are also key players in readying their member states for the commercialisation of and trade in GM cotton, through harmonised biosafety policies. Together COMESA and ECOWAS incorporate 34 countries in Africa.

The COMESA Policy on Biotechnology and Biosafety was adopted in February 2014 and member states validated the implementation plan in March 2015.

The ECOWAS Biosafety Policy has been through an arduous process for more than a decade now and pronounced conflicts between trade imperatives and safety checks have stalled agreement between stakeholders. However, recent reports indicate that agreement between member states and donor parties has been reached and a final draft of the Biosafety Policy will soon be published.

Experiments and open field trials with GM cotton have been running for many years in a number of African countries and are increasingly at a stage where applications for commercial release are imminent.

However, there are many obstacles to the birth of a new GM era in Africa, chief among them the fact that this high-end technology is simply not appropriate to resource-poor farmers operating on tiny pieces of land, together with fierce opposition from civil society and sometimes also from governments.

Attempts by the biotech industry to impose policies that pander to investors’ desires at the expense of environmental and human safety may be easier to realise at the regional level, through the trade-friendly RECs. This is where many biotech industry resources and efforts are currently being channelled.

Despite whatever legal environments may be implemented to enable the introduction of GM cotton regionally or nationally, the fact remains that Africa’s cotton farmers are operating in a difficult global sector – prices are erratic and distorted by unfair subsidies in the North, institutional support for their activities is often lacking, and high input costs are already annihilating profit margins.

Fighting for the introduction of more expensive technologies that have already proven themselves technologically unsound in a smallholder environment is deeply irresponsible and short-sighted.

It is time that African governments turn their resources to improving the local environments in which cotton producers operate, including institutional and infrastructural support that can bring long-term sustainability to the sector, without placing further burdens and vulnerability on some of the most marginalised people in the world.

Civil society actions will continue to vehemently oppose and challenge the false solutions promised by GM cotton and will insist on just trading environments and true and sustainable upliftment for African cotton producers.

Edited by Phil Harris   

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

* This opinion piece is based on the author’s more extensive paper titled Cottoning on to the Lie, published by the African Centre for Biodiversity, June 2015

Excerpt:

Bienvienue Taguieke, now 15, who refused to be sold into marriage when she was 12 for the equivalent of 8.5 dollars. Credit: Ngala Killian Chimtom/IPS

By Ngala Killian Chimtom
MAROUA, Cameroon, Jun 10 2015 (IPS)

Twelve-year-old Bienvienue Taguieke was expected to obey her parents and marry a man 40 years her senior, but an association of women in Cameroon’s Far North Region, where child marriages are rife, put a stop to it in a sign that women are starting to speaking out against the practice.

“I was a pupil at a government school in Guidimdaz, a village in the Mokolo area of the Far North Region when a man offered 5,000 CFA francs (around 8.50 dollars) to my mother for my hand in marriage. I refused and alerted some people including the headmistress of my school,” Bienvienue, now 15, told IPS.

Bienvienue believes her mother had considered the offer for economic reasons. “I think my mother wanted to sell me because of poverty. My father had died and there was nobody to pay my school fees and take care of us,” she says.“My daughter will not suffer like me. I will do everything to keep her in school. I am appealing to government to outlaw early marriages, so that girls can go to school, and get married only after their studies” – 15-year-old Nabila who succeeded in escaping from her marital home

However, the school’s headmistress, Asta Djarmi, begged Bienvienue’s mother not to give her daughter away to a much older man. “The headmistress stopped the marriage arrangement my mother had initiated, then the people of ALDEPA, a local civic group campaigning against child marriages, intervened and repaid the 5,000 CFA franc “dowry” to this man. They are also the ones paying my school fees today,” says the grateful schoolgirl.

The 15-year-old says she dreamt of becoming a teacher, and that getting married as a child could have ended that dream. Now that she not had to do so has revived that dream.

Hers is not an isolated case of resistance in the region. Across the Far North Region, teenage girls are resisting what they consider a hurtful culture.  In neighbouring Zilling village, for example, 15-year-old Nabila succeeded in escaping from her marital home.

“I was forced by my parents into marrying an elderly man two years ago when I was only 13. I lived in the man’s house for 14 painful days. I felt as if an evil spirit was haunting me and I decided to run away,” the young girl recalled.

But those 14 days left her pregnant, and the teenager now raises the child by herself. Ironically, the man she was coerced to marry has now filed a court case against her, demanding that Nabila return to her marital home.

“I can’t do that,” she insists. “Not for anything in the world.” The premature marriage spoiled her chances of becoming the nurse she had wanted to be and now Nabila insists that she will never let her daughter go through the same trauma.

“My daughter will not suffer like me. I will do everything to keep her in school. I am appealing to government to outlaw early marriages, so that girls can go to school, and get married only after their studies.”

ALDEPA is now providing legal assistance to the teenage mother, and a senior official of the association, Henri Adjini, told IPS that it is currently paying the school fees of 87 teenagers rescued from early marriages.

Adjini said that forced marriages were part of the culture of the local Mafa and the Kapsiki tribes, explaining that parents marry off their daughters in exchange for dowry payments in the form of money, livestock or goods.

“The wish to strengthen family ties and friendships is very important for people here and they believe marrying off their daughters could do just that. Some other parents simply use their daughters to pay off their debts … the young woman’s choice hardly counts here,” he told IPS.

Marrying daughters off is an income-generating strategy in Cameroon, where almost one-third of the country’s 22 million people are poor, according to the United Nations.

In fact, according to the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), there is a relationship between early marriage and poverty in the Central African country, with 71 percent of child brides coming from poor households. Figures from the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) for 2014 show that 31 percent of teenage girls in the Far North Region fall prey to early marriages.

Cameroon’s Minister of Women’s Empowerment and the Family, Marie Therese Abena Ondoa has publicly condemned these marriages, saying that it is “immoral to sell out girls as if they were property.”

Child marriage is not unique to Cameroon, however. Many countries in the region and in the world face similar, or even worse case scenarios.

According to a 2013 UNFPA report, two out of five girls under the age of 18 are married in West and Central Africa. The worst culprit is Niger with 75 percent of child marriages – the highest rate in the world – followed by Chad with 72 percent and Guinea with 63 percent.

Like most governments in the region, Cameroon does little to protect these girls. The legal minimum age of marriage in Cameroon is only 15 years for girls, and 18 years for boys.  Even then, the legal requirement that marriage should only be contracted between two consenting partners is hardly enforced.

Minister Ondoua has helped launch advocacy campaigns and collaborated with NGOs, community and religious leaders in rural areas to educate the population, but she has not been able to convince government to raise the legal marriage age.

Nevertheless, the campaigns have been bearing fruit, with many girls saying “no” to family attempts to sell them off.

Girls like Abba Mairamou who resisted her father’s attempt to sell her off at the age of 12, are a living testimony to this success.

“I was only 12-years-old when my father pulled me out of primary school in 2004 to offer me to his friend as a wife. I refused and my father got angry and wanted to send me away from the house. I was desperate until I was, introduced to the association that fights against violence towards women in Maroua,” Abba says.

“Later, my father was invited to a meeting and he was persuaded to be opposed to early and involuntary marriage .This completely changed my father and me. I not only refused to be a victim of involuntary marriage, but today, I am a fighter against it.”

Abba formed the Association for the Autonomy and the Rights of Girls, known by its French acronym ‘APAD’, to sensitise teenage girls and parents in her Zokkok neighbourhood in Maroua against early marriages.

“We now offer shelter to many victims of forced marriages, and many girls are now standing up to that hurtful custom,” she beams.

Edited by Lisa Vives/Phil Harris

By Karine Jacquemart and Anuradha Mittal
PARIS/OAKLAND, California, May 11 2015 (IPS)

In our work at Greenpeace and the Oakland Institute around access and control over natural resources, we face constant accusations of being anti-development or “Northern NGOs who care more for the trees”, despite working with communities around the world, from Cameroon, to China, to the Czech Republic.

Karine Jacquemart

This name calling, aimed at discrediting struggles for land, water, and other natural resources in the Third World countries, hides an ugly truth.  The land rush unleashed around the world to own and exploit Earth’s natural bounty is not only fierce and unfair, but increasingly fatal.

Recent reports, including a Global Witness report titled ‘How many more?’ released in April 2015, document the increase in the assassinations of land and environmental activists globally – a shocking average of over two a week in 2014.

As individuals and groups in the frontline of struggles face intimidation, arrests, disappearances, and even death, it is an ethical imperative to support the struggles of the grassroots land defenders against corporations and governments. This is what unites organisations like Greenpeace and the Oakland Institute.

Over the last decade, an estimated 200 million hectares – an area five times bigger than California – has been leased or purchased throughout the world, through completely opaque deals in most cases.

Natural resources in Africa are some of the most sought after, hence the fact that Africa experiences more than 70 percent of the reported land deals.

Anuradha Mittal

Multinational companies with assistance from powerful partners – the World Bank Group and G8 “donor” countries – are moving in, chanting their “development” formula: facilitate foreign investment through large-scale land acquisitions and mega-projects to ensure economic growth which will trickle down to translate into development for all.

Our work reveals a very different and worrying reality on the ground. Local communities and indigenous peoples report lack of consultation; their lands, homes and forests bulldozed and cleared for foreign investors; their livelihoods shattered.

As one villager in the Democratic Republic of the Congo said, “I want to remain a farmer on my land, not a daily worker depending on a foreign company”, or in the words of a Bodi chief in Ethiopia, “I don’t want to leave my land. If they try and force us, there will be war. So I will be here in my village either alive on the land or dead below it.”

They, and countless more, are victims of the theft of natural resources, made invisible and voiceless by those who define what development looks like.“As individuals and groups in the frontline of struggles face intimidation, arrests, disappearances, and even death, it is an ethical imperative to support the struggles of the grassroots land defenders against corporations and governments”

As if destruction of lives and livelihoods were not enough, those who resist are harassed, even face violence, by governments and private companies.

A planned palm oil plantation by the U.S.-based Herakles Farms in Cameroon threatens to evict thousands of people off their land and destroy part of the world’s second largest rain forest.

The company’s former CEO, responding to criticism of the project, said in an open letter: “My goal is to present HF for what it is – a modestly-sized commercial  oil  palm  project  designed  to  provide employment and  social  development and improve  the  level  of  food  security, while incorporating industry best practices.”

What he failed to mention is how a Cameroonian activist, Nasako Besingi, who heads a local NGO, The Struggle to Economize the Future Environment (SEFE), learnt first-hand the consequences of opposing the project. Arrested in 2012 for planning a peaceful demonstration in Mundemba, Nasako and two of his colleagues languished in a jail for several days.

Soon after his release, while touring the area with a French television crew, he was ambushed and assaulted by men he recognised as employees of Herakles Farms. Instead of protection from this violence, Nasako and SEFE face legal battles, including one of the favorite corporate tactics – a defamation lawsuit, intended to intimidate him and the others who oppose.

Privatisation of land and theft of natural resources will be irreversible and will put people, forest, ecosystems and the climate at risk, if it goes unchecked. The time is now to choose a development path that prioritises people and the planet over profits for the rich. (END/COLUMNIST SERVICE)

Edited by Phil Harris

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

Cameroon’s government under President Paul Biya is bearing down on a separatist movement fighting for the rights of a minority English-language region, using as its weapon a sweeping new anti-terrorism law introduced at the end of last year.

The separatist Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC) – which is demanding an independent Southern Cameroons made up of Cameroon’s Northwest and Southwest Regions – has been targeted under the new law, which forbids public meetings, street protests or any action that the government deems to be disturbing the peace.

Map showing location of Southern Cameroons (highlighted). Credit: Wikimedia Commons Public Domain

English-speaking Cameroonians make up over 22 percent of the country’s population of 20 million.

Long desired by Western powers for its beauty and natural resources, Cameroon was first occupied by the Germans in 1884. After the First World War, the French and British carved it up between them as League of Nations mandates – four-fifths went to France, the rest to the United Kingdom.

A federation was declared in 1961, followed by the annexation of the English-language region into the United Republic of Cameroon, with its capital in Yaounde in 1972. Dissension continues to seethe, however, in the English-speaking regions which resent the lack of control over their assets.

Over the years, Cameroon has downplayed its problems with the English-speaking regions, while making token placements of a few of their citizens in its administration.

Secessionists say this relationship of inequality has led to impoverishment of the territory and its population and a diminishment of their educational and cultural heritage, while feeding the flame of ethnic strife between the people of the Northwest and Southwest Regions.

The extraction of oil and the expropriation of Cameroon’s substantial oil revenues is frequently cited as the touchstone for frustration and anger among those of the struggling south.The separatist Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC) has been targeted under Cameroon’s new anti-terrorism law, which forbids public meetings, street protests or any action that the government deems to be disturbing the peace

In this regard, the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI) gave Cameroon a “failing grade”, ranking it 47^th out of 58 countries for such weaknesses as enabling environment, safeguards and quality controls, and reporting practices.

“Cameroon’s national oil company (SNH) dominates the sector,” NRGI reported. “It is directly controlled by the Presidency … The largest revenue streams are collected by SNH and transferred quarterly to the national treasury after subtracting the company’s operational costs – meaning that some oil revenues never reach the treasury.”

Aside from publishing environment impact assessments, Cameroon provides very little information on its extractive sector, noted NRGI, while it performed near the bottom of rankings on measures of budgetary openness and the rule of law.

Oil exploration, production and refining all take place in Southern Cameroons, while oil-derived revenues are paid to the state coffers directly in Yaounde.

Against this background, and since Cameroon’s President Paul Biya endorsed an anti-terrorism law in December 2014, the SCNC has not been able to organise any major gathering.

An attempt this month, on Apr. 3, ended with the arrest of Nfor Ngala Nfor, SCNC Vice National Chairman, and six others in Buea, Southwest Region.

Andrew Kang, who had hosted the SCNC leaders, told IPS from his hospital bed at the Buea Regional Hospital that security forces barged into his house while he and the guests were about to have a meal. “We were not even permitted to eat our food. They just beat us, ordered us to move and led us to the station. We spent four days in a prison cell and only regained freedom at about 5 pm on Apr. 6.”

Kang denied the government’s charges of promoting secession and rebellion which had been levelled against the group.

Talking to IPS, Martin Fon Yembe, a member of the SCNC and human rights activist, said that while the government made it seem that the new anti-terrorism law was designed to boost the fight against Boko Haram, the main aim was to stop the holding of SCNC meetings and gatherings.

“Everyone knows that law was put in place to hinder the activities of the movement and there is no gainsaying the fact that it poses a problem,” he said.

A U.S. State Department human rights report on Cameroon in 2013 referred to security force torture and abuse, denial of fair and speedy public trials and restrictions on freedom of assembly and association. “Although the government took some steps to punish officials who commit abuses in the security forces and in the public service, impunity remained a problem,” said the report.

Meanwhile, thousands of Southern Cameroonians are currently in exile in Europe and the United States and thousands more are on the run because of their support for the separatist movement.

The Biya administration, on the other hand, presents a picture of a country unswervingly headed for growth. In a document titled Cameroun Vision 2035, a long-term vision is described which envisages the consolidation of democracy, enhancement of national unity, economic development and increasing employment.

Under a three-year plan, unveiled in December, Cameroon will spend 1.75 billion dollars “to meet the immediate needs of the population,” focusing on sectors such as road infrastructure, health, agriculture, energy and security.

“The special programme, evaluated at 925 billion CFA francs, is financed through the mobilisation of the required resources from local and international financial institutions at sustainable rates,” Prime Minister Philemon Yang said without giving further details.

In the latest twist to the South Cameroons issue, a meeting this month of Cameroon’s English-speaking lawyers gave notice that an All-Anglophone Lawyers Conference would be held shortly in Bamenda, chief city of the Northwest Region, “to develop strategies at safeguarding the Common Law and to map out the way forward for the Southern Cameroons territory,” the Cameroon Concord reported.

The news online was met with over a dozen enthused readers. “Machiavelli Ayuk” of the University of Buea wrote: “This is the kind of action that the marginalised Anglophone people love to hear. At last we have some Educated Elites in the Anglophone zone…”

The comment was followed by “Fast Man”, a self-described fieldworker, who wrote: “I hope the lawyers use their intelligence and remember their oath. We will never go anywhere under French hegemony. God bless the Southern Cameroons and its citizens…”

Edited by Lisa Vives/Phil Harris    

Subsistence-oriented small-scale agriculture is often not the preferred choice of work for many young Africans. Photo credit: FAO

By Kwame Buist
JOHANNESBURG, Mar 27 2015 (IPS)

Over half of the African continent’s population is below the age of 25 and approximately 11 million young Africans are expected to enter the labour market every year for the next decade, say experts. 

Despite strong economic growth in many African countries, wage employment is limited and agriculture and agri-business continue to provide income and employment for over 60 percent of sub-Saharan Africa’s population.

However, laborious, subsistence-oriented small-scale agriculture is often not the preferred choice of work for many young people.

In an effort to reap this demographic dividend and attract young people into the agri-food sector, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) have launched a four-year project to create decent employment opportunities for young women and men in rural areas.

The four million dollar project, funded by the African Solidarity Trust Fund, aims to develop rural enterprises in sustainable agriculture and agri-business along strategic value chains.

Speaking at the project signing ceremony on Mar. 25, NEPAD’s chief executive officer, Dr Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, said: “The collaboration between NEPAD and FAO will go a long way in ensuring that the youth, Africa’s future, are not forgotten.

“It is by creating an economic environment that stimulates initiatives – particularly by conducting transparent and foreseeable policies – and at the same time by regulating the market in order to deal with market failures that we will attain results and impact through the new thrust given to our farmers, entrepreneurs and youth.”

The project – which is expected to see over 100, 000 young men and women benefit in rural Benin, Cameroon, Malawi and Niger – is anchored in the Rural Futures Programme of NEPAD, which is centred on rural transformation in which equity and inclusiveness allow rural men and women to develop their potential.

FAO Assistant Director General for Africa Bukar Tijani said that the project “marks an important milestone in moving forward and upward in terms of empowering youth in these four countries – especially women, as 2015 is the African Union’s Year of Women’s Empowerment.”

The project is seen as part of a drive to stimulate the agriculture and agri-business sectors into becoming more modern, profitable and efficient, and capable of providing decent employment opportunities for Africa’s young labour force.

In 2012, the African Union Commission, NEPAD Agency, the Lula Institute and FAO formed a partnership aimed at ending hunger on the continent. A year later, the four partners organised a high-level meeting of ministers in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, leading to a declaration to end hunger and a road map for implementation.

This declaration was subsequently endorsed at the 2014 African Union summit in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, and incorporated into the Malabo Declaration on Accelerated Agricultural Growth and Transformation for Shared Prosperity and Improved Livelihoods as the “Commitment to Ending Hunger in Africa by 2025”.

Edited by Phil Harris   

With kidnappings and violent attacks almost a daily occurrence in Nigeria, the disappearance of an American missionary appears to have stirred a new wave of outrage among the international community at the worsening conditions in the West African country, once considered a rising star and the largest economy on the continent.

Phyllis Sortor, a reverend with the Free Methodist Church USA, was taken from Hope Academy in Kogi state, central Nigeria, where she had been working since 2005.

The kidnapping was probably not the work of Boko Haram, said Philip Obaji Jr., a freelancer and founder of 1 GAME, an advocacy group that fights for the right to education for disadvantaged children in northeastern Nigeria.

Kogi state police commissioner Adeyemi Ogunjemilusi announced that a ransom of around 300,000 dollars had been demanded by Tuesday afternoon, barely 24 hours after the kidnapping, which is not typical for Boko Haram.

“Kidnapping is big business here in Kogi. Most of the times, ransoms are paid to secure the release of abductees,” Ahmed, a local journalist, said in an interview. “I wouldn’t be surprised if a ransom is paid to secure Ms. Sortor’s release.”

On the same day as Sortor’s kidnapping, a Chinese construction worker was abducted from his work site by armed men. All of southern Nigeria is prone to kidnappings, and public officials, their relatives, and foreign workers are regularly abducted for ransom. An estimated 1,500 kidnapping cases are reported every year.

Meanwhile, it has been nearly one year since over 270 schoolgirls were kidnapped by Boko Haram militants in Chibok, Nigeria.

Local activists have been stepping up their demands that the government make the disappearance of the Chibok girls the top priority. “Our rallies are the reason why [the government] remembers,” organizer Funmi Adesanya told TIME magazine, “but I don’t think they are really doing anything about it.

While President Goodluck Jonathan and his national security advisor promised to end the Boko Haram threat before elections now scheduled for March 28, the new multinational force of Cameroon, Chad and Niger appears to be drawing new and dangerous fire from the insurgents.

On Saturday, some 5,000 Cameroonians marched in their capital, Yaounde, and denounced the violence caused by Boko Haram.

“It was important to tell Cameroonians that we are at war and a part of the country is suffering,” newspaper editor Gubai Gatama told Al Jazeera. “About 150,000 people have been displaced by the conflict, some 200,000 Nigerians are in refugee camps and 170 schools in Cameroon have been closed,” he said. “I am sure Boko Haram has got the message that the people are united against them.” Two hundred Cameroonian soldiers have been killed in the cross-border skirmishes so far.

Edited by Roger Hamilton-Martin

A group of Nigerian refugees rests in the Cameroon town of Mora, in the Far North Region, after fleeing armed attacks by Boko Haram insurgents on Sep. 13, 2014. Credit: UNHCR / D. Mbaoirem

By Ngala Killian Chimtom
MAROUA, Far North Region, Jan 14 2015 (IPS)

“I’d quit my job before going to work in a place like that.” That is how a primary school teacher responded when IPS asked him why he had not accepted a job in Cameroon’s Far North region.

James Ngoran is not the only teacher who has refused to move to the embattled area bordering Nigeria where Boko Haram has been massing and launching lightning strike attacks on the isolated region.“I looked at my kids and lovely wife and knew a bullet or bomb could get them at any time. We had to run away to safer environments. " -- Mahamat Abba

“Many teachers posted or transferred to the Far North Region simply don’t take up their posts. They are all afraid for their lives,” Wilson Ngam, an official of the Far North Regional Delegation for Basic Education, tells IPS. He said over 200 trained teachers refused to take up their posts in the region in 2014.

Raids by the Boko Haram insurgents in the Far North Region have created a cycle of fear and uncertainty, making teachers posted here balk at their responsibility, and forcing those on the ground to bribe their way out of “the zone of death.”

Last week, Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau threatened Cameroon in a video message on YouTube, warning that the same fate would befall the country as neighbouring Nigeria. He addressed his message directly to Cameroonian President Paul Biya after repeated fighting between militants and troops in the Far North.

Shekau was reported killed in September by Cameroonian troops – a report that later turned out to be untrue.

As the Nigerian sect intensifies attacks on Cameroonian territory, government has been forced to close numerous schools. According to Mounouna Fotso, a senior official in the Cameroon Ministry of Secondary Education, over 130 schools have already been shut down.

Most of the schools are found in the Mayo-Tsanaga, Mayo-Sava and Logone and Chari Divisions-all areas which share a long border with Nigeria, and where the terrorists have continued to launch attacks.

“Government had to temporarily close the schools and relocate the students and teachers. The lives of thousands of students and pupils have been on the line as Boko Haram continues to attack. We can’t put the lives of children at risk,” Fotso said.

“We are losing students each time there is an attack on a village even if it is several kilometres from here,” Christophe Barbah, a schoolmaster in the Far North Region’s Kolofata area, said in a press interview.

The closure of schools and the psychological trauma experienced by teachers and students raises concerns that the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) on education will be missed in Cameroon’s Far North Region.

Although both government and civil society agree that universal primary education could attained by the end of this year in the country’s south, the 49 percent school enrolment rate in the Far North Region, compared to the national average of 83 percent, according to UNICEF, means a lot of work still needs to be done here.

Mahamat Abba, a resident of Fotocol whose four children used to attend one of the three government schools there, has fled with his entire family to Kouseri on the border with Chad.

“I looked at my kids and lovely wife and knew a bullet or bomb could get them at any time. We had to run away to safer environments. But starting life afresh here is a nightmare, having abandoned everything,” he told IPS.

Alhadji Abakoura, a resident of Amchidé, adds that the area has virtually become a ghost town. “The town had six primary schools and a nursery school. They have all been closed down.”

Overcrowded schools

As students, teachers and parents relocate to safer grounds, pressure is mounting on schools, which have to absorb the additional students with no additional funds.

According to UNICEF figures for Cameroon, school participation for boys topped 90 percent in 2013, while girls lagged behind at 85 percent or less. However, participation has been much lower in the extreme northern region.

According to the Institut National de la Statistique du Cameroon, literacy is below 40 percent in the Far North, 40 to 50 percent in the North, and 60-70 percent in the central north state of Adamawa. The Millennium Development Goal is full primary schooling for both sexes by 2015.

“Many of us are forced to follow lectures from classroom windows since there is practically very limited sitting space inside,” Ahmadou Saidou, a student of Government Secondary School Maroua, tells IPS. He had escaped from Amchidé where a September attack killed two students and a teacher.

Ahmadou said the benches on which three students once sat are now used by double that number.

“It’s an issue of great concern,” Mahamat Ahamat, the regional delegate for basic education, tells IPS.

“In normal circumstances, each classroom should contain a maximum of 60 students. But we are now in a situation where a single classroom hosts over one hundred and thirty students,” he said. “We are redeploying teachers who flee risk zones…we are getting them over to schools where students are fleeing to.

“These attacks are really slowing things down,’ Mahamat said.

Government response to the crisis

The Nigerian-based sect Boko Haram has intensified attacks on Cameroon in recent years, killing both civilians and military personnel and kidnapping nationals and expatriates in exchange for ransoms.

To respond to the crisis, Cameroon has come up with military and legal reforms. A new military region was set up in the country’s Far North Region. According to Defence Minister Edgar Alain Mebe Ngo’o, “The creation of the 4th Military Region is meant to bring the military closer to the theatre of threats, and to boost the operational means in both human and material resources.”

Military equipment has been supplied by the U.S., Germany and Israel, according to press reports.

Mebe Ngo’oo said Cameroon will recruit 20,000 soldiers over the next two years to step up the fight against the terrorists. Besides the military option, Cameroon has also come up with a legal framework to streamline the fight against terrorism. An anti-terrorism law was passed by Parliament in December, punishing all those guilty of terrorist acts by death.

But opposition political leaders, civil society activists and church leaders have criticised it as anti-democratic and fear it is actually intended to curtail civil liberties.

Edited by Lisa Vives

Legislators in Cameroon have voted in a draft law proposing the death sentence for all those guilty of carrying out, abetting or sponsoring acts of terrorism. The draft law, which is now being examined by the Cameroon Senate, call for punishment acts of terrorism committed by citizens, either individually or in complicity, with death.

The draft law also prescribes the death penalty for persons who carry out “any activity which can lead to a general revolt of the population or disturb the normal functioning of the country” and for “anyone who supplies arms, war equipment, bacteria and viruses with the intention of killing.”

The same applies for people guilty of kidnapping with terrorist intent, as well as for “anyone who directly or indirectly finances acts of terrorism” and for “anyone who recruits citizens with the aim of carrying out acts of terrorism.”“This [anti-terrorism] law is manifestly against the fundamental liberties and rights of the Cameroonian people … In the guise of fighting terrorism, the government’s real intent is to stifle political dissent” – Kah Wallah, leader of the Cameroon People’s Party

The draft law also punishes people and companies found guilty of promoting terrorism, as well as people who give false testimony to administrative and judicial authorities in matters of terrorism, with various fines and prison terms.

The anti-terrorism law has sparked a wave of criticism across the political chessboard – from opposition political leaders to civil society, church ministers and trade unions.

“This law is designed to terrorise the people and kill their freedoms,” opposition leader, John Fru Ndi told IPS.

Kah Wallah, the lone female leader of a political party in Cameroon [the Cameroon People’s Party], added that “the government is taking us back to the worst days of the most barbaric dictatorship … This law is manifestly against the fundamental liberties and rights of the Cameroonian people … In the guise of fighting terrorism, the government’s real intent is to stifle political dissent.”

For Maurice Kamto, a former cabinet minister who resigned to form the Movement for the Revival of Cameroon (MRC), President Paul Biya – now in power for 32 years – is afraid of any popular up-rising that could put his stay in power in jeopardy.

“The president has certainly learnt from the lessons coming from Burkina Faso. A similar uprising here will sweep his failed presidency under the carpet,” he said. Facing mounting pressure, President Blaise Compaoré of Burkina Faso was forced to resign on Oct. 31 after 27 years in office.

Various opposition political leaders and civil society exponents have vowed to fight the proposed law to its logical end. “Cameroonians must resist and say no to this other manoeuvre … We will fight this law by every means,” Ndi said, without elaborating.

However, Jean Mark Bikoko,  president of the Public Service Workers’ Trade Union, already has an idea on how to proceed. In a strongly-worded statement released on Dec. 3, Bikoko said that the law “is a veritable declaration of war against the people … The anti-terrorism law has provoked the ire of civil society and we will protest on December 10 – International Human Rights Day.”

But the government has said it will not falter in the fight against terrorism. Justice Minister Laurent Esso told MPs that “Cameroon will never be complicit to those whose only agenda is to cause mayhem and destabilise the normal functioning of the state.”

Counting the costs

In the north of the country, Cameroon’s military are combating cross-border raids by Nigeria’s militant Islamist group Boko Haram. On May 17, President Biya along with other regional leaders and French President François Holland said they were declaring war against Boko Haram.

Cameroon has since deployed thousands of troops in the country’s Far North Region and plans to send still more troops. Defence Minister Edgar Alain Mebe Ngo’o and Delegate General for National Security Martin Mbarga Nguele have announced that some 20,000 defence and security forces will be recruited within the next two years to reinforce the fight against Boko Haram.

However, as the security crisis in the country continues to worsen, Cameroonian authorities have been counting the costs, not only in terms of human loss, but also in terms of the impacts of the crisis on the economy.

During a special parliamentary plenary session on Nov. 27, Ngo’o said that since the crisis escalated eight months ago, Cameroon has so far lost some forty soldiers, but killed about one thousand Boko Haram fighters. “Our defence forces have simply been formidable,” he said.

But the economic costs of the war are heavy. According to the Minister of the Economy, Planning and Regional Development, Emmanuel Nganou Djoumessi, “the most affected sectors have been the tourism, transport, trade, agriculture and livestock sectors.”

He said  that “almost all tourism enterprises have been shut down, the number of tourists visiting attraction parks like the Waza National Park and the Rhumsiki Mountains have gone down drastically, and the hotel occupation rate has dropped from 50 percent before the crisis to just 10 percent today.”

In addition, there has been a sharp drop in customs revenue. Although customs officials have not tallied the losses, they say they are astronomical.

“There was a border custom post in the Far North Region that used to give us a monthly income of CFA 700 million (1.4 million dollars).That customs post has been closed down. Can you imagine what the state is losing yearly in customs revenue? It’s enormous,” said the Director-General of Customs, Lissette Libom Li-Likeng.

Government spokesman and Communication Minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary told journalists in Yaounde that in view of the human, economic and psychological losses that Cameroon has been incurring as a result of Boko Haram, a stringent law is necessary to contain the militant group.

(Edited by Phil Harris)

According to an African proverb, “every woman who gives birth has one foot on her grave.” Cameroonians are attempting to make this proverb a historical fact and not a present reality through SMS technology. Credit: Mercedes Sayagues/IPS

By Ngala Killian Chimtom
YAOUNDE, Sep 23 2014 (IPS)

“You can’t measure the joy in my heart,” Marceline Duba, from Lagdo in Cameroon’s Far North Region, tells IPS as she holds her grandson in her arms.  

“I am pretty sure we could have lost this child, and perhaps my daughter, if this medical doctor hadn’t shown up,” Duba says, a smile sweeping her face.

The medic in question is Dr Patrick Okwen. He is the coordinator of M-Health, a project sponsored by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) that uses mobile technology to increase access to healthcare services to communities “when they most need it.”

The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends that a nurse or doctor should see a maximum of 10 patients a day. But according to Tetanye Ekoe, the vice president of the National Order of Medical Doctors in Cameroon, “the doctor-to-patient ratio in Cameroon stands at one doctor per 40,000 inhabitants, and in remote areas such as the Far North and Eastern Regions, the ratio is closer to one doctor per 50,000 inhabitants.”

Okwen was in Lagdo testing out the SMS system, which was just implemented a few months back, when Duba’s daughter, Sally Aishatou, went into labour.

Okwen and the medical staff at the Lagdo District Hospital received an SMS from Aishatou. She had been in labour for 48 hours with no signs that the baby was about to come.

“What happens when a woman SMSes a particular number, the GPS location blinks on the server, and then the server tries to identify her location, puts it on Google maps; then tells the driver to go there. [The system] also tells the doctor to come to the hospital; tells the nurses to get ready. So everybody gets into motion,” he tells IPS.

Okwen and the ambulance driver traced Aishatou to her home. They found her lying helpless on a mat, almost passed out. By the time the ambulance returned to the hospital, the operation room was ready for her and she was taken into surgery immediately.

Eight minutes later, her 4.71 kg baby boy was born. The midwife Manou nee Djakaou tells IPS: “The joy in me is so great that I don’t even know how to express it. I am so exited; very happy. This system put in place is very efficient. But for this innovation, we stood to lose this baby and its mother.”

Two hours after surgery, Aishatou regained consciousness and named her boy after Okwen.

According to the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF), out of every 100,000 live births 670 women in Cameroon die. UNICEF figures also state that for every 1,000 live births, 61 infants died in Cameroon in 2012.

“Many women are dying from child-birth related issues. Women are dying while giving life. And this is something we are really concerned about, but we also know that with the coming of mobile technology, there is hope for women in Africa,” Okwen says.

“Most of the women in Africa today have access to a telephone. It could be her own, her husband’s own, or a neighbour’s. So if we had a way in which women could reach an ambulance using a phone that would guide the ambulance, it could indeed present hope for African women,” he explains.

Okwen says the project has benefitted “close to one hundred women in terms of information, evacuation, arrangements of hospital visits, deliveries and caesarean sections.”

The project has been dubbed “Tsamounde”, which means hope in the local Fufuldé language.

Mama Abakai, the Mayor of Lagdo, says the project’s impact has been far reaching.

“A lot of our sisters, wives and mothers in rural areas lose their lives and suffer a lot, because there is a communication gap, and a problem of rapid intervention and assistance. With this system, it suffices to send an SMS or a simple beep, and all the actors involved in saving lives are mobilised…its formidable,” Abakai tells IPS.

Dr. Martina Baye of Cameroon’s Ministry of Public Health calls the project a “revolution in Cameroon’s health care delivery system.”

She says that as a majority of women in the country’s far North Region have little access to healthcare services, the M-Health Project comes as a huge relief.

According to the 2010 Population census, the Far North Region has a population of three million people, 52 percent of whom are women.

“We look forward to using this technology in other parts of the country,” she tells IPS.

Edited by: Nalisha Adams

The writer can be contacted at: https://www.facebook.com/ngala.killian

Lara Adama digs for water in a dried up river bed in Dumai, in Cameroon’s far north. There has been a nine-month drought in the region and recurrent cholera outbreaks. Credit: Monde Kingsley Nfor/IPS

By Monde Kingsley Nfor
DUMAI/YAOUDE, Cameroon, Aug 19 2014 (IPS)

Under a scorching sun, with temperatures soaring to over 40 degrees Celsius, Lara Adama’s family is forced to dig for water from a dried-out river bed in Dumai, in northern Cameroon. 

This is one of the rivers that used to flow into the shrinking Lake Chad but there is not much water here.

There has been a nine-month-long drought in the region and Adama tells IPS that her family “digs out the sand on this river bed to tap water.”

“We depend on this water for everything in the house,” Adama, a villager in Mokolo in Cameroon’s Far North Region, says.

A cholera outbreak has been declared in Adama’s village. But she and other community members have no choice but to get their water from this river.

The lone borehole in this village of about 1,500 people is out of use due to technical problems.

“Every family comes here to retrieve drinking water. Our animals too depend on this water source to survive. When we come after the animals have already polluted a hole, we simply dig another to avoid any health problems,” she says.

This region is threatened by extreme water shortages and climate variability. Barren soils constitute some 25 to 30 percent of the surface area of this region. Lake Chad is rapidly shrinking while Lake Fianga dried up completely in December 1984.

Gregor Binkert, World Bank country director for Cameroon, tells IPS that a water-related crisis is prevalent in the north and there is an increased need for protection from floods and drought, which are affecting people more regularly.

“Northern Cameroon is characterised by high poverty levels, and it is also highly vulnerable to natural disasters and climate shocks, including frequent droughts and floods,” Binkert explains.

The protracted droughts in Far North Region have triggered a sharp increase in cholera cases. The outbreak is mainly concentrated in the Mayo-Tsanaga region as all its six health districts have cases of the infectious disease. The current outbreak has already resulted in more than 200 deaths out of the 1,500 cholera cases reported here since June.

According Cameroon’s Minister of Public Health Andre Mama Fouda, “poor sanitation and limited access to good drinking water are the main causes of recurrent outbreak in the Far North. A majority of those infected with the disease are children under the age of five and women.”

Poor hygiene practices

“Cholera in this region is not only a water scarcity problem, it also aggravated by the poor hygienic practices that are deeply rooted in people’s culture. Water is scarce and considered as a very precious commodity, but handling it is quite unhygienic,” Félicité Tchibindat, the country representative for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Cameroon, tells IPS.

Cultural practices are still primitive in most villages and urban areas.

Northerners have a culture where people publicly share water jars, from which everyone drinks from.

“These practices and many others make them vulnerable to water vector diseases. [It is the] reason why cholera can easily spread to other communities. Cholera outbreaks are a result of inadequate water supplies, sanitation, food safety and hygiene practices,” Tchibindat says.

Open defecation is also common in the region. According Global Atlas of Helminth Infections, 50 to 75 percent of the rural population in Far North Cameroon defecate in the open, compared to 25 to 50 percent of people in urban areas.

Access to good drinking water and sanitation is also very limited. Two out of three people do not have access to proper sanitation and hygiene. While about 40 percent of the population has access to good drinking water, this figure is much lower in rural areas. In rural Cameroon only about 18 percent of people have access to improved drinking water sources, which are on average about over 30 minutes away.

Development challenges

Water sanitation and health (WASH) is vital for development, yet Far North Region has some of the most limited infrastructure in the entire nation, coupled with security challenges as the region is increasily throated by Nigeria’s extremist group Boko Haram.

Poverty is high in the region, UNICEF’s Tchibindat says. And the security issue in neighbouring countries has not helped Cameroon provide proper access to medical services here.

According to UNICEF, major challenges abound in Cameroon. There is a low capacity of coordination for WASH at all levels, and poor institutional leadership of sanitation issues. The decentralisation of the WASH sector means there is no proper support with inequitable distribution of human resources in regions.

“The government and many development partners have provided boreholes to communities and the region counts more than 1,000 boreholes today,” Parfait Ndeme from the Ministry of Mines, Water Resources and Energy says.

But about 30 percent of boreholes are non-functional and need repair, according to UNICEF.

Ndeme explains that, “the cost of providing potable water in the sahelian region might be three times more costly than down south. Distance is one major factor that influences cost and the arid climate in the region makes it difficult to have underground water all year round.”

A borehole in the northern region costs at least eight million Francs (about 16,300 dollars) compared to two million Francs (about 4,000 dollars) in other regions.

Health care challenges are prominent.

“The Far North has limited access development which also has a direct influence of the quality of health care,” Tchibindat says.

The unavailability of basic infrastructure and equipment in health centres makes it difficult to practice in isolated rural areas. Consequently, most rural health centre have a high rate of desertion by staff due to the low level of rural development, she adds.

Most of Cameroon’s health workers, about 59.75 percent, are concentrated in the richest regions; Centre, Littoral and West Region, serving about 42.14 percent of Cameroon’s 21 million people.

According to the World Health Organisation:

• 30.9 percent of health centres in Cameroon do not have a medical analysis laboratory.
• 83 percent of health centres do not have room for minor surgery.
• 45.7 percent of health centres have no access to electricity
• 70 percent of health centres have no tap water.

“Due to lack of equipment in hospitals, the treatment might only start after a couple of hours increasing the probability of it spreading,” Peter Tambe, a health expert based in Maroua, the capital of Far North Region, tells IPS.

“Report of new cholera cases are numerous in isolated villages and the present efforts by the government and development partners are not sufficient to treat and also monitor prevalence,” Tambe says.

Since the discovery of cholera in the region, the government and UNICEF and other partners have doubled their services to these localities to enforce health facilities and provide the population with basic hygiene aid, water treatment tablets and free treatment for patients, regardless of their nationality, along the border with Chad and Nigeria.

“Despite insecurity challenges facing this region, the government and its partners have embarked on information exchanges with Niger, Chad, and Nigeria to avoid further cross-border cases,” Public Health Minister Fouda tells IPS.

Edited by: Nalisha Adams

The writer can be contacted at nformonde@gmail.com

Judith Muma, a smallholder farmer from Cameroon’s Northwest Region, says if climate change adaptation funds could reach farmers like her, her farming costs would reduce. Credit: Monde Kingsley Nfor/IPS

By Monde Kingsley Nfor
YAOUNDE, Aug 14 2014 (IPS)

In Cameroon’s Northwest Region, Judith Muma walks 9km from her home to her 300-square-metre farm. The vegetables she grows here are flourishing thanks to the money she has borrowed from her njangi (thrift group) and a local credit union to finance a small artisanal irrigation scheme.

“I spend more money today buying farm implements such as water tanks, watering pumps, fertilisers, insecticides and improved seeds. I think we must spend in farming today if we want to adapt to climate change,” Muma tells IPS.

Cameroon’s economy is primarily agrarian and about 70 percent of this Central African nation’s 21.7 million people are involved in farming. Changes in temperature and precipitation pose a serious threat to the nation’s economy where agriculture contributes about 45 percent to the annual GDP.

In the northern parts of Cameroon, the semi-arid lowlands and hills are mostly dependent on rainfall and groundwater. The impact of forest clearance on hydrological processes has also aggravated climate change impact in these areas.“If most of the projects on climate change adaptation ... could reach us, the farmers, directly, important farm implements the cost of farming could reduce.” Judith Muma, smallholder farmer, Cameroon

Muma explains that even small-scale subsistence farmers like her now need to invest money in their livelihoods to ensure a minimal output. She says as a result of her investment, most of her harvest — 60 percent — is sold at a local vegetable market.

According to the World Bank, agriculture in Africa declined in absolute terms from eight billion dollars in 1984 to 3.5 billion dollars in 2005. There was also a decline in development cooperation policies and in national budget allocations for agriculture.

“This drop in concern for agriculture had a considerable influence on Africa’s capacity to develop climate adaptation policies and early warnings [systems]. But after two decades of decline, investments in agriculture are now on the rise,” Collotte Eboko, an agriculture inspector in Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, tells IPS.

“Sub-regional initiatives have generated a multiplicity of commitments to addressing climate change, poverty and hunger with a new focus on climate friendly agriculture,” Eboko says.

According to a United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, Africa faces “very high” risks to crop production as a result of global warming.

Last year’s Adaptation Gap study published by the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) warned that Africa could face an annual adaptation bill of 35 to 50 billion dollars by 2050.

But Africa lags behind as far as adaptation projects to support vulnerable groups are concerned.

“African governments have not done enough for the developed world to see adaption as priority for the continent. They still think climate change is a white people’s [western] problem…

“The position of Africa is grounded on these assumptions. But if we started by showing more commitments, our claims shall be more rational,” Samuel Nguiffo, of the Centre for Environmental Development, a research organisation in Cameroon, tells IPS.

Investment in climate change adaptation can help ensure that the impacts of climate change — including a projected 20 to 50 percent decline in water availability — do not reverse decades of development progress in Africa, according to the UNEP.

As the international community prepares for the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Paris 2015, Africa still has much at stake in this global discuss. But the issues are many and complex due to the continent’s high level of vulnerability to climate change and its low level of resources.

But Nguiffo says that Africa should not wait for a developed nation to finance a policy formulation project.

“The will and commitments should rather come from our own parliaments and decision makers first. Africa needs an effective climate change adaptation policy that considers climate change as survival issue.

“Integrating a gender approach is vital to promoting a quick response to climate action both at international and national level,” Nguiffo says.

Many African countries are lagging behind as far as adaptation projects are concerned. The Climate Funds Update (CFU) website highlights a large gap between funding approved and funding spent on projects in Africa.

For this reason, Africans have missed out on important funding opportunity for their projects. For example, under the U.N.’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), only two percent of the over 7,000 projects are based on the continent.

•  In 2011, 72 CDM  projects  were  registered across Africa, accounting  for  only  two percent of global CDM projects.
• South Africa and Egypt host a majority of the projects in Africa, with the rest in the remaining African countries.
•  The remainder of the CDM projects are in the Asia–Pacific: 73.1 percent; and in Latin America and the Caribbean: 23.5 percent.

The failure of the CDM of the Kyoto Protocol to support projects in Africa has been a major concern for African climate experts.

This lag has been blamed on Africa’s low capacity to develop and invest in mitigation as well as climate-resilient agriculture.

“Africa is in dire need of capacity building of national institutions responsible for mitigation and adaptation to facilitate and increase Africa participation in CDMs and REDD,” Timothee Kagonbe, one of Cameroon’s envoys to the climate change negotiations, tells IPS.

There are serious bottlenecks in programme implementation in Africa. In Cameroon, for example, there were over 30 CDM projects registered by Cameroon’s Ministry of Environment, but only one has been implemented and is qualified as a CDM project.

In 2010, the Japanese government supported 20 African countries with 92.1 million dollars over three years to implement integrated and comprehensive adaptation actions and resilience plans.

According to Daniel Seba of the Ministry of Environment, “the Japanese Africa Adaptation Programme helped Cameroon develop climate-resilient policies and development processes to incorporate climate change risks/opportunities in priority sectors but we need funding for its implementation.”

But Kagonbe explains that weak governance and limited capacity has resulted in failures in climate change adaptation and mitigation projects. The various international procedures for the formulation and implementation of mitigation and adaptation projects are very complicated for African countries, which have very little capacity and funding.

The African Development Bank has recently opened the Africa Climate Change Fund. This is aimed at ensuring countries on the continent get more help adapting to the effects of global warming. The fund received six million dollars from Germany in April.

“Climate change is a great opportunity for economic growth given increasing climate funding pledges and if more investment is made in agriculture it will becomes more sustainable, increasing its productivity and becomes more resilient against the impact of climate change,”  Eboko says.

Africa needs to rethink many of its basic economic assumptions and investment strategies and start spreading investment in rural and deserted regions to reduce climate induce security risk and migration, she adds.

“If most of the projects on climate change adaptation we hear about on the radio and read in publications could reach us, the farmers, directly, important farm implements the cost of farming could reduce,” Muma says.

Edited by: Nalisha Adams

The writer can be contacted at nformonde@gmail.com

Coffee beans, freshly picked and ready for drying. Credit: Will Boase/IPS

By Ngala Killian Chimtom
KOUOPTOMO, Cameroon, Aug 5 2014 (IPS)

Issah Mounde Nsangou combs his 6.5-hectare Kouoptomo coffee plantation in Cameroon’s West Region, pulling up unwanted weeds and clipping off parasitic plants. For the 50-year-old farmer, the health of his coffee plants are of prime importance.

“I have to prune the farm to make it neat. This will obviously yield good gains,” he tells IPS. Kouoptomo is traditionally a coffee farming village, but like other production basins in this Central African country, production has been on a continuous decline.

Twenty years ago, Nsangou would harvest about 4.8 tonnes (about 80 bags) of coffee from the land. Not anymore.

“Last year, I did not even harvest up to 20 bags,” he says.Coffee contributes about six percent to the country’s GNP and constitutes a lifeline for some 400,000 farmers. The current efforts are intended to raise production to about 120,000 tonnes by 2015.

Coffee production in Cameroon has been plummeting over the years, falling by 56 percent in 2013, with farmers harvesting a mere 16,142 tonnes. It was a dramatic decline from the over 38,000 tonnes harvested the previous year. But the 2012 harvest only represents a third of the 1986 harvest of 140,000 tonnes, according to the Interprofessional Council for the Cocoa and Coffee (CICC) in Cameroon.

Omer Maledy Gaetan, executive secretary of CICC here, points out that Cameroon used to be one of the biggest coffee producers in the world.

“In 1980, we were ranked the 8th [as a] world coffee producer. In 1992, when we liberalised the sector, Cameroon was ranked 12th in the world. Today, we are ranked as 30th,” he tells IPS.

The reasons for the downward trend are many and varied. According to Gaetan, the costs of inputs like fertilisers spiked in the wake of the government’s decision to eliminate subsidies and price protections for the sector in the 1990s.

The increased costs of production, coupled with low market prices at the time, discouraged farmers, many of whom turned to food crop cultivation instead.

“Without fertilisers, insecticides, fungicides and sprayers, it was hard for many farmers to sustain their farms,” Nsangou says.

In addition, farmers complain that erratic rainfall and the absence of technical advice from extension services have combined to hampered the sector.

Still, many are returning to their farms, despite the setbacks.

Issah Mounde Nsangou’s son helps him to weed his Kouoptomo coffee plantation in Cameroon’s West Region. Cameroon is now looking to revive the once-thriving sector. Credit: Ngala Killian Chimtom/IPS

A Ray of Hope

With world demand for coffee rising by about three percent every year, Cameroon is now looking to revive the once-thriving sector. The CICC has launched a project known as “New Generation”, which to attract youths into a sector currently sustained by ageing farmers and ageing farms.

Gaetan explains that “New Generation is a programme for youths. In this programme, we introduce 200 young people every year, and we give them support over three years. From next year, we will be having 600 young people every year. That gives me hope that we will re-launch this sector. It is necessary not only to renew the farms, but also to bring in fresh blood into the sector.”

In February the European Union and Cameroon signed a 30-million euro agreement to boost coffee production here, as part of the “Coffee Sector Re-Start Emergency Plan”. Gaetan says the six-year project that begins this year “aims to get the sector out of its misery, and will involve supporting farmers in a variety of ways.”

He says the objective is to create 3,600 hectares of coffee plantations in six years.

“We will supply farmers with everything they need, except labour,” he says.

”We will supply them with inputs necessary to create plantations; from setting up the nursery to setting up the infrastructure to control post-harvest losses.”

He says the first three years will focus on creating 2,200 hectares of coffee plantations in the production basins of the Upper-Nyong in East Region; Moungo, along the coast; and Noun in West Region.

According to the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Essimi Menye coffee remains a key crop that could contribute to Cameroon’s planned development by 2035.

It contributes about six percent to the country’s GNP and constitutes a lifeline for some 400,000 farmers. He says the current efforts are intended to raise production to about 120,000 tonnes by 2015.

Still, current efforts to boost production may not adequately benefit farmers if added value is not brought into the sector. The CCIC says only five percent of Cameroon’s coffee is transformed locally, thereby depriving farmers of a significant mark-up in income.

“Value-addition is the best thing that can happen to coffee farmers and the coffee sector,” Peter Fonguh Minnang, marketing director of the North West Cooperative Association — a farmer’s cooperative involved in coffee marketing, tells IPS.

“If we can transform our coffee, the farm-gate price will automatically go up, because if a kilogram of parchment sells for CFA 500 [about one dollar], we will be paying the farmer at least CFA 1500 [about three dollars] for the same parchment when [value is added],” he explains.

Justifying why it is necessary for Cameroonians to renew their faith in the coffee sector, Gaetan recently told journalists in Yaounde that “all the data and analyses confirm that the future of the global coffee industry is rather promising.”

Edited by: Nalisha Adams

The writer can be contacted at: https://www.facebook.com/ngala.killian

Sheik Oumarou Malam Djibring, a member of Cameroon’s Council of Imams, called on the country’s Muslims to be vigilant against the extremist group Boko Haram and to report any strange and suspicious-looking individuals. Credit: Ngala Killian Chimtom/IPS

By Ngala Killian Chimtom
YAOUNDE, Jul 31 2014 (IPS)

Motari Hamissou used to get along well with his pupils at the government primary school in Sabga, an area in Bamenda, the capital of Cameroon’s North West Region.

In the past, Hamissou also lived in peace with his neighbours. No one was bothered by his long, thick beard or the veil his wife, Aisha Hamissou, wore, or the religion they followed.

According to the 2010 general population census, Muslims constitute 24 percent of this Central African nation’s 21 million people, most of whom live in Cameroon’s Far North, North and Adamawa Regions; all on the border with Nigeria. Cameroon’s north western boarder runs along the length of Nigeria’s eastern boarder, stretching all the way to Nigeria’s predominantly Muslim north — a stronghold of the Nigerian extremist group, Boko Haram.

But the intermittent attacks and abductions perpetrated by Boko Haram in Cameroon’s North West Region has destroyed the peace and accord that Hamissou enjoyed with his pupils and neighbours.

The most recent attack by the group was on Jul. 27 when the wife of Cameroon’s Vice Prime Minister Amadou Ali was kidnapped in the northern town of Kolofata. The group is said to have increased its attacks from Nigeria into neighbouring Cameroon. Since the group first took up arms five years ago for a Muslim state in Nigeria, more than, some 12,000 people in that West African nation have died in the crisis, according to figures from Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan.

Now Hamissou’s own pupils call him “Boko Haram” in reference to the group. The name, Boko Haram, means “Western education is a sin” in the local Nigerian dialect, Hausa.

“They see our beards or the veils our wives [wear] and immediately link us to the sect,” Hamissou tells IPS.

“I am a teacher. I teach Western education. How can I teach Western education and at the same time say that it is forbidden? That’s incomprehensible,” he adds.

Arlette Dainadi, a 12-year-old schoolgirl who attends the same primary school that Hamissou teaches at, tells IPS some of her peers have gone as far as taking off her veil and shouting: “Boko Haram! Boko Haram!”

Aisha Hamissou tells IPS that even adults have taken to name-calling.

“I can’t move and interact freely with other people without being called names. People call me Boko Haram,” she explains, almost bursting into tears.

In a concerted effort to distance themselves from the extremist group, Muslim groups and leaders in Cameroon, including the Association of Muslim Students and the Cameroon Council of Imams, have been organising workshops, seminars and public demonstrations to sensitise the general public about their stance against the extremist sect.

Sheik Oumarou Malam Djibring, a member of Cameroon’s Council of Imams, tells IPS that Boko Haram’s campaign against Western education, as well as the atrocities it exacts on innocent people, has nothing to do with Islam.

“Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance. Departing from these precepts is actually against Islam,” he says.

Members of the Cameroon Council of Imams and Muslim leaders have embraced “Boko Halal”,”an Hausa idiomatic expression which means education is allowed or permitted as contained in the Quran.

Islamic teacher and religious leader Sheik Abu Oumar Bin Ali tells IPS that Muslim scholars have been major drivers of education.

“Abu Ja’far Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi was a leading Muslim scholar who founded the branch of mathematics known as algebra… So it’s stupid for anyone to link Muslim with a hatred for Western education,” he says.

But Ahmadou Moustapha, a traditional Muslim ruler in Cameroon’s Far North Region, tells IPS that Boko Haram has definitely been recruiting young Muslims in the region.

“They come here and forcefully whisk away our young people,” Moustapha explains.

“I believe they go and intoxicate them with their hate beliefs.”

According to Professor Souaibou Issa, from the University of Ngaoundere in Cameroon’s Adamawa Region, the group is even more dangerous because “you never know what their linkages are, you don’t know what exactly their focus is, and you don’t know who the actors are. There is widespread suspicion, and the states are fighting invisible enemies.”

Mallam Djibring called on the country’s Muslims to be vigilant and report any strange and suspicious-looking individuals.

Editing by: Nalisha Adams

David, 14, transports gallons of palm oil for his father in Penja, in Cameroon’s Littoral region. Experts say there is a strong need for a people-centred approach if growth in Cameroon is to be resilient. Credit: Monde Kingsley Nfor/IPS

By Monde Kingsley Nfor
YAOUNDE, Jul 24 2014 (IPS)

For the last 13 years, Michael Ndah, 37, has worked for three road construction companies in Cameroon, but it is only in the last two years that his current employer has managed to register him with the National Social Insurance Fund (CNPS). 

The CNPS is a pension system for workers in the private sector but they can only join if they are signed up by their employers. Benefits also include medical and surgical care and hospitalisation. But Ndah’s CNPS cover does not provide for his family’s health.

“When my wife goes to the hospital I cannot use my insurance card for treatment and they say I must first pay in cash,” he tells IPS.

The labour code provides that seven percent of a worker’s salary is given to CNPS each month, with the highest salary calculated by the system being 300,000 CFA (about 640 dollars) — even if the person earns above this.

It is a contributive system where 2.8 percent of the payments are covered by the employee, with the remaining contributions covered by the employer. But with 640 dollars being the maximum wage allowed by CNPS, overall pensions are low.

And it’s a huge concern for Ndah.

“I don’t know if, before my retirement, I would have contributed enough to be eligible for a monthly pension payment,” Ndah worries.

The number of working-age people who are members of the CNPS is also low. According to the United Nations, about 53.3 percent of the country’s 21.7 million people are of working age (16 to 64 years). But only about 10 percent of them are insured by the CNPS.

“All workers in the formal sector are supposed to be registered with the social insurance [CNPS] eight days after signing an employment contract but many employers do not implement this law,” John Yewoh Forchu, a general inspector at the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, tells IPS.

The high rate of unemployment here – about 30 percent – favours most employers who do not run organised work environments and are not ready to sign any form of contract with employees.

Warda Ndouvatama, a Yaounde-based civil administrator and expert on social security and protection, says that most employers falsely declare the number of workers employed by their organisations to avoid social insurance contributions.

He tells IPS that this phenomenon is not only common in Cameroon but in many African countries where more than 70 percent of the population work in the informal sector and do not have employment contracts.

“This has a big impact on the ability of people to cope with present and future eventualities,” Ndouvatama says.

While countries in Africa are enjoying higher levels of economic growth and well-being, the latest annual Human Development Report by the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) says that countries on the continent need to intensify their fight against deprivation.

The report states that by providing an additional and predictable layer of support, social protection programmes help households avoid selling off assets, taking children out of school or postponing necessary medical care, all detrimental to their long term well-being.

“One commonly held misconception is that only wealthy countries can afford social protection or universal basic services. As this report documents, the evidence is to the contrary. Except for societies undergoing violent strife and turmoil, most societies can — and many have — put in place basic services and social protection,” the report states.

Mutale Wakunuma, the Zambia country coordinator of the Africa Platform for Social Protection, agrees.

“We all know that there is overwhelming evidence of the role social protection plays in reducing extreme poverty and helping countries recover from crises, but we need these implemented in earnest by governments,” she tells IPS, pointing out that social protection programmes that help reduce poverty are few and far between.

“This failure to implement them in earnest is why the report observes that in spite of the progress, sub-Saharan Africa is the most unequal region in the world,” she adds.

Lisa Simrique Singh, senior economist at UNDP in Yaounde, says in terms of Cameroon and the global and national discussion post 2015, the focus is on “resilience and growth that leaves no-one behind.”

“There is thus a strong need overall for a people centred approach if growth in Cameroon is to be resilient,” she tells IPS.

“To this end there is need for a systemic approach which combines macro, sectoral and micro interventions in a meaningful way that responds to the real needs of the poor. And as a policy tool, there is a strong need for social protection to be mainstreamed into the overall growth agenda of the country.

“Social security currently exists but it is only one component of it since it covers and benefits only those in the formal sector, which account for around 10 percent of the population.”

Cameroon, however, is looking to reform the CNSP. Future changes will include increasing the monthly contribution from seven to 13 percent of a person’s salary, creating a security system for informal sectors and universal health coverage that guarantees access to medical treatment even when a patient has no money.

Officials at the fund also acknowledge that if nothing is done to get more people integrated in the fund by 2020, the social security system will be grounded. This is because very few formal sector workers and no informal workers benefit from social security and the existing social security does not cover many risks.

“The social insurance fund scheme of 1974 is old and major reforms have to be done because we have [a larger] ageing population than before the 1990s. In the 1990s, 10 workers were contributing for one retired person but today 10 workers contribute for six retired persons,” Forchu says.

He explained that the system in place is a social solidarity system where those working contribute to help those who are out of activity.

“Fewer people now contribute to retired people. The cost of living and prices has increased without a relative salary increase and workers’ pensions cannot really meet the standards of life today.”

*Additional reporting by Amy Fallon in Kampala, Uganda and Friday Phiri in Lusaka, Zambia.

Fisherman in Kribi, Cameroon, say this is the last stretch of beach with enough space for them to anchor their canoes. Credit- Monde Kingsley Nfor/IPS.jpg

By Monde Kingsley Nfor
KRIBI, Cameroon, Jul 24 2014 (IPS)

Pierre Zambo is a hotel manager in Kribi, a sea resort town in Cameroon’s South Region. In the past his hotel would have “more than 100 tourists each week. But today if I manage to have 50 people registered into my hotel weekly, then it’s good business.”

Located in the gulf of Guinea, Kribi is a town with an estimated population of about 50,000 whose livelihoods depend on farming, fishing and tourism.

However, rising sea levels and increased tides have eroded most of the once-sandy beach along Kribi. Now beaches are reduced to narrow muddy paths. And local hotels, bars and restaurants are feeling the impact of this erosion directly in their pockets as tourists reduce in numbers.

“Tourists come and are less interested in our beaches and prefer spending time in the forest attractions,” Zambo tells IPS.

Emmanuel Founga, a botanist, owns a hotel on Kribi’s coast."I have to make sand bags every August to October when the sea is very high to avoid further erosion of land and the danger of my walls collapsing." -- Pierre Zambo, Kribi hotel manager

“The Kribi coastline has eroded from about 50 to 100 metres since 1990. It is evident from the trees that are uprooted by waves today but were found inland some years ago,” Founga tells IPS.

He says the local population is losing an important source of livelihood as the number of tourists reduce, local restaurants and bars are beginning to close down.

“High degradation of the coast has a big implication on tourism in this region; sea level rise has caused not only erosion but has polluted the coast. Much waste from the Atlantic Ocean is swept by the sea to these beaches. The waves in return cause erosion of the banks, leaving the beaches muddy and filthy,” Founga explains.

“Climate change is having a devastating impact in Cameroon and the coast of Kribi is a perfect example of the problem of rising sea levels and the enormous impact on safety and livelihood of the population,” Tomothé Kagombet, the focal point person for the Kyoto Protocol at the Ministry of Environment Nature Protection and Sustainable Development, tells IPS.

Climate change is not only a coastal problem but has had widespread impact on this Central African nation. Across the country there are reports of limited and erratic rainfall, pests and plant diseases, erosion, high temperatures, droughts and floods.

Cameroon’s economy relies heavily on climate-sensitive sectors, mainly agriculture, energy and forestry — with 70 percent of the population depending directly on agriculture.

While Cameroon’s Ministry of Tourism is currently channeling funds from a United Nations World Tourism Organisation project called ST-EP or Sustainable Tourism – Eliminating Poverty to climate change projects along the coast, it is not enough.

Through ST-EP, various projects are being implemented in Kribi beach and its forests and along other coastal areas such as Douala and Limbe to help people adapt to the changing climate and develop their sites for tourism.

“Due the problem of a degrading coast, we are encouraging locals to also develop other touristic sites such as the forest with Baka pigmies and their rich culture, which recently has been a huge attraction. We have given funding for them to restore and  manage beaches from Kribi to Limbe and other sites,” Muhamadu Kombi, director of tourist sites in the Ministry of Tourism, tells IPS.

However, this is but one project. The concrete implementation of nationwide climate change adaptation strategies are lagging due to the absence of funding.

The National Climate Change Adaptation Plan (PENACC) provides strategies and actions to mitigate the effect of climate change, but Kagombet points out that Cameroon does not benefit from any funding from United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) negotiations.

“But one of the main problems facing Cameroon and other developing nations is the problems of implementation. We depend on funding from developed nations to better implement this elaborated adaptation plan of action.

“In this document [PENACC], Cameroon’s vulnerability is considered by sector and adaptation actions are formulated following these specificities. With the coastal ecosystem, for example, there is a need for both mechanical [building of dikes] and biological [planting of mangrove trees] means of adaptation,” Kagombet says.

An aspect of Cameroon’s planned action is the introduction of climate change as a subject in schools, with proposed syllabuses already available. The plan of action also prioritises actions in the industrial sector, waste management and transport sectors.

“It is a package with every requirement; capacity, technology and other resources needed to adapt and mitigate climate change effects,” Kagombet says.

While Cameroon plans to implement and carry out Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) projects, operational dawdling could hinge on the country’s commitments to mitigate climate change.

Meanwhile, those who have not benefited from adaptation projects in Kribi find that not only their livelihoods are threatened, but that they are constantly paying out of their own pockets to adapt to a changing climate.

“These high tides has brought many problems. I have to make sand bags every August to October when the sea is very high to avoid further erosion of land and the danger of my walls collapsing,” Zambo says.

A family from Central African Republic who fled to Cameroon’s East Region after the 2013 coup d’état that ousted President François Bozizé. Credit: Monde Kingsley Nfor/IPS

By Monde Kingsley Nfor
GUIWA, Cameroon, Jun 24 2014 (IPS)

Central African Republic refugees living in Cameroon’s East Region are increasingly becoming frustrated about their deteriorating living conditions and their inability to support themselves as conflict between them and and local villagers has escalated over depleting resources.

They say they have been denied access to farm tools as aid agencies fear they may use them as arms against the local population.

Clay-Man Youkoute, head of refugees in Guiwa camp, told IPS that aid agencies showed the refugees pieces of land that they could cultivate.

“Before starting work on the land, aid agencies refused to give us the right farm tools. They say if they give us machetes we will use as weapons against local population. This is very insulting.

“We went further to toil in the bushes with unsuitable farm tools just to be denied access to the farms later,” Youkoute said, explaining that “the local chief and his population drove us from the land saying that we have no right to their land.”

Now Rosaline Kusangi, a mother of three, has resorted to harvesting wild forest fruits to earn a living. She walks five kilometres to a nearby forest to harvest wild mangoes daily. She then sells the mangoes at the Guiwa market square.

“I cannot have a farm, so I depend on wild fruits for survival but the locals still think I have no right to the fruits because I am a refugee,” Kusangi told IPS.

About 1,500 refugees have settled in Guiwa, eastern Cameroon as part of the first influx from CAR after the April 2013 coup d’état that ousted President François Bozizé. However, in May 2013 a number of refugees began abandoning the border camps because of the poor living conditions there and made their way to Guiwa village. It is estimated that over 200,000 refugees from CAR are currently in Cameroon.

But even in Guiwa refugees live in squalid conditions and in tents that are wearing out quickly. There is a lack of water and proper waste treatment facilities.

“We have been here for more than a year still living in worn-out shelters. During the dry season it is very hot inside and it leaks when it rains. Moreover, insects and snakes find their way easily into the tents,”Jodel Tanga, a CAR refugee, told IPS.

In addition to poor living conditions, infections and malaria has increased during the first two months of the rainy season.

“Each day, about 10 people are sick with malaria and stomach disorders since the rains started. All the wells that were dug by the United Nations Refugee Agency [UNHCR] have dried up or are unclean, so we have to go two kilometres to fetch water,” Juliana Manga, a CAR refugee who has taken responsibility as health assistant in the Guiwa camp, told IPS.

Access to health care is difficult, Manga said.

“When we go to the clinic, we are always the last to be served. They say we should allow the people of the land first. The nurses in hospitals make comments and gestures that are insulting.”

Manga also complained that local school authorities did not allow their children to attend school because of limited space in classrooms.

The number of refugees crossing from CAR into Cameroon has dropped from more than 10,000 a week before March to about 1,000 weekly.

But the influx has already changed the make-up of most towns in East Region.

According to Guiwa local councillor, Joseph Kwette, the local community are concerned about their own security and livelihoods since the start of the refugee influx.

“These refugees were a disgruntled group who had forcefully made their way into Guiwa despite attempts by the local population to push them back [to remain in the camps on Cameroon’s border towns]. This made the tension with the local population to subsist until today,” Kwette told IPS.

The locals’ water supply has been severely compromised. Local children are forced to travel long distances to fetch water and fire wood. The cassava tuber, which is the most consumed food in the region, has also become scarce and sells for double its price on the market.

“Lack of water in the refugee camps and deforestation by refugees has also threatened the food security of the Guiwa population who also depend on forest products and water for survival. Prices of goods has increased and petty theft is common,” Kwette said.

According to the police commander in Guiwa village, criminal activities have increased over the last year.

Refugees have been accused of being behind the recent spate of armed robberies and increasing sex trade.

In January, CAR refugees had taken hostage two United Nations aid workers to protest a lack of needed aid. In early May, a group of armed men from CAR abducted 18 civilians who were travelling in east of Cameroon.

But the refugees argue that they are simply victims of circumstances and are not given some of the basic human right to freedom of movement.

“We are seen as criminals because we don’t have identification papers. The police incriminate us and many refugees find themselves in Bertoua prison just because they attempted to move and search for jobs in the urban area. There is no paper to identity us as CAR refugees registered by the UNHCR,” said Youkoute, head of refugees at Guiwa camp.

Aid agencies in Cameroon have declared the current situation an emergency and have called for more aid.

The World Health Organisation has declared that health facilities are terribly understaffed and lack water and electricity. Humanitarian workers on the ground are over stretched and medical supplies are also running out.

The U.N. World Food Programme’s food stores are running empty and there is urgent need for funds to buy more food and nutritional supplements for malnourished children.

“The needs of refugees are colossal, the most pressing needs is that that of housing, food and health. Many more sites have been identified to host the refugees camped in villages,” Faustian Tchimi, Cameroon Red Cross director in East region, told IPS.

Kids from a poor neighbourhood in Yaounde, Cameroon’s capital, kick around a football. They are excited ahead of the the FIFA World Cup, for which Cameroon has qualified a record seven times. Courtesy: Ngala Killian Chimtom

By Ngala Killian Chimtom
YAOUNDE, Jun 11 2014 (IPS)

It is almost 6pm. A group of kids are plying their craft in a dusty, dirty courtyard in a poor neighbourhood in Yaounde, Cameroon’s capital. That craft is football.  They kick the once-white-but-now-brown, aged football around. One child is barefoot, the other wears worn shoes and is dressed in the kit of the national team. 

“I want to play like [Lionel] Messi,” one of kids called Jack tells IPS as his voice rises above the rest of the excited crowd. “I am Eto’o…I am Ronaldo…Pepe…Rooney…,” the kids start shouting, each one of them giving the name of his dream football star.

Samuel Eto’o is Cameroon’s football star, he plays forward for English club Chelsea, and will be leading the national team, known worldwide as the Indomitable Lions, in this year’s FIFA World Cup in Brazil.Football is more than just a game here “it is a religion,” -- sports journalist Fon Echeckiye.

Cristiano Ronaldo, is the famous Portuguese footballer who plays as a forward for Spanish club Real Madrid, and Pepe is the nickname for his fellow club member, Képler Laveran Lima Ferreira. Wayne Rooney is an English football star who punters predict will take the upcoming football world cup by storm.

With just a day to go before the proposed start of the world cup from the Jun. 12 – Jul. 13, Brazilians have begun protests and strikes in demand of higher wages. There have been numerous reports of corruption and rights violations during the public works to prepare for the event.

But here in this Central African nation, the kids are oblivious to this and have big dreams and big ambitions. And this reflects the deeper passions that drive football in Cameroon — a country that will be participating in this year’s World Cup for a record seven times — more than any other African team.

Football is more than just a game here “it is a religion,” sports journalist Fon Echeckiye tells IPS.

A fan of the Indomitable Lions, Cameroon’s national team. This central African nation has qualified for the FIFA World Cup a record seven time. Credit: Ngala Killian Chimtom/IPS

Cameroon for all its football glory has only two standard football stadiums, one in Yaounde and the other in Garoua in the country’s Far North Region. Despite the poor infrastructure here, the love for football runs really deep in Cameroon.

According to the African Economic Outlook, although Cameroon has abundant natural resources “revenues obtained from the exploitation of these resources, and from oil in particular, have not been sufficiently channelled into structural investments in infrastructure and the productive sectors.”

“In our day, each time we were faced with an opponent, we thought about nothing else than the national flag,” Thomas Nkono, the retired ace Cameroon keeper who was once nick-named “the Black Spider,” because of his acrobatic saves, tells IPS.

Of Cameroon’s estimated 20 million people, some 39.9 percent are affected by poverty.

“It was always a good feeling to know that millions of Cameroonians — poor and wretched alike — could abandon their daily bread and butter concerns to support the team. It always gave us an added motivation,” he muses.

That feeling amongst players hasn’t changed much. On the sidelines of the Lions’ last preparatory match for the 2014 FIFA World Cup against Moldova on Saturday, Jun. 7, striker, Achille Webo told IPS “it’s true some of us who play professional football earn a lot of money, but to see crowds like this is not something money can buy. It is highly motivating.”

Ngando Picket, a Lions’ supporter who accompanies the team everywhere, says over the years he’s composed more than three hundred songs in support of the team.

He speaks breathlessly as he strains to sing and dance. Ngando tells IPS: “The boys always need to know that the nation, the people stand behind them and I work daily to fulfil that role. I believe the singing and dancing we put on from the stands fires the boys up and that alone keeps them up to steam.

“We are travelling to Brazil to do so, and I believe Cameroon will create a lot of surprises.”

Across the board, supporters, initially sceptical about the team’s form ahead of the tournament, now seem to have gained in hope, after the tie with Germany in a warm up game.

“That match reminds me of 1990 when the Lions stunned the world with a 1-0 win over Argentina [then holders of the World Cup title] in the opening match of that year’s world cup,” says Benjamin Ngah, a taxi driver in Yaounde. The team eventually became the first African nation to qualify for the quarter final of a world cup tournament.

“I believe we have got the quality to accomplish the same exploit this year, or perhaps go further,” he tells IPS.

Senior defence officials say that Cameroon has been infiltrated by Nigeria’s Islamist extremist group Boko Haram and there are fears that this central African nation, known for its stability, is drifting into chaos.

“Right now, we are being infiltrated by Boko Haram. The military has decided to strengthen the intelligence system to effectively counter this threat, which seems to be gaining local support,” Colonel Didier Badjeck, spokesperson for the Cameroon Ministry of Defence, told IPS.

Governor of Cameroon’s Far North Region, Augustine Awa Fonka, told IPS that the precision with which the extremist group attacked a military post in the region on May 5, lends credence to the fact that the attack was carried out with the help of local informants.“It’s difficult to live in a place where even the rustles of tree leaves jolt you out of a rare sleep, and where you know you and your kids could be killed without warning.” -- Cameroonian El Hadji Numbao

Cameroon’s north western boarder runs along the length of Nigeria’s eastern boarder, stretching all the way to Nigeria’s predominantly Muslim north — a Boko Haram stronghold. In March, the government set up a number of military posts along Cameroon’s northwestern border with Nigeria in response to Boko Haram’s insurgency.

But on 2am, May 5, over 30 suspected Boko Haram insurgents struck the Kousseri military post in Far North Region and killed a Gendarmerie officer and a civilian being held in custody. Several people were wounded as the group freed one of their members, who was also being held at the post.

“In all of the cases [of Boko Haram attacks], especially the attack on the military post, there are quite a number of arrests that have been made. The attack couldn’t have been carried out without local informants and we believe we are going to identify these accomplices,” Awa Fonka said.

He admitted that the attack on the military was spreading fear among locals.

“The forces of law and order are there to protect the population. When they [the military] are now being attacked, it destabilises everyone,” he said.

He described the attackers as “faceless” terrorists would could only be tracked down with help of locals. He added that “every measure will be put in place to track down the attackers, or at least get their accomplices.”

Attacks in Nigeria have also resulted in refugees fleeing to safety in Cameroon. On May 6, Boko Haram — which means “Western Education is a sin” in the local Nigerian dialect, Hausa — raided a market in the Nigerian border town of Gambourou. More than 200 people, including four Cameroonians, died in the attack. Around 3,000 Nigerians, many of whom were wounded during the violence, crossed over to the Cameroonian town of Fotokol.

“The forces of law and order cannot do it alone. They need the population to denounce people of doubtful origin who are in their neighbourhoods. We need to unite, because a nation unified against its enemy is invincible,” Awa Fonka said.

But the readiness of locals to cooperate remains in doubt.

“People are suspicious of each other. You can’t possibly trust even your nextdoor neighbour because you do not know with whom they sit and dine,” Alamine Ousman, a resident of Kousseri, Far North Region, told IPS.

“But we know that Boko Haram members are here among us — they move about like anyone else, and you can’t even tell they are from Boko Haram.”

Many in the region remain afraid for their lives and are reluctant to volunteer any information about Boko Haram’s members.

Hawe Aishatu, who escaped the attacks in the Far North Region and fled to the capital, Yaounde, cast a furtive glance before she spoke in a subdued tone.

“It can mean death talking about these people. They are fundamentally evil,” she told IPS.

The recent attack on the Kousseri military post forced El Hadji Numbao and his family to flee the town. He told IPS that if the insurgents had the nerve to attack military posts, then ordinary people like himself were not safe.

“It’s so scary,” Numbao said just as he stepped off a train at Yaounde station.

“It’s difficult to live in a place where even the rustles of tree leaves jolt you out of a rare sleep, and where you know you and your kids could be killed without warning,” he said.

Adouraman Halirou, a university don and specialist on border issues, told IPS that he feared Cameroon, which frequently prided itself as being a fountain of peace in a troubled African continent, may be drifting into chaos.

He urged the government to make use of all its available human and technical resources to stem the threat.

“The conflicts, the crises and the tensions plaguing the region, particularly Nigeria, have not failed to have repercussions in our country,” Minister of Communications Issa Tchiroma Bakary told IPS.

Military posts have also been set up on the country’s eastern border with Central Africa Republic (CAR) as Cameroon has also faced attack there. In Cameroon’s East Region over 18 locals were kidnapped on May 2 by insurgents from CAR.

“Cameroon is subject to attacks perpetuated from neighbouring countries, and by nationals of those countries,” Tchiroma Bakary added.

Until then Cameroonians like Numbao will continue to flee for safety.

“I have left everything back-my businesses, my cattle…everything. But I am happy my seven children and three wives are safe,” Numbao said. He has relocated to the capital with his entire household.

A poster to promote rotavirus vaccination. Credit: Monde Kingsley Nfor/IPS.

By Monde Kingsley Nfor
YAOUNDÉ, May 7 2014 (IPS)

The growing number of child deaths from diarrhoea in Cameroon has necessitated the introduction of a new vaccine (RotaTeq) designed to protect babies under five against common types of rotaviruses that cause diarrhoea. But growing skepticism over new vaccines, and lack of potable water and proper hygiene could thwart such public health efforts, experts say.

“Diarrhoea is one of the top killers of children under five in Cameroon, responsible for more than 5,800 deaths in children under five yearly,” Desire Noulna of the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) told IPS.There is suspicion and mistrust of vaccines among different communities in Cameroon.

According to GAVI, a public-private alliance to boost immunisation, rotavirus kills more than 600 children every day in Africa, and thousands more are hospitalised or require clinic visits.

Globally, rotavirus is the most usual cause of severe gastroenteritis in children, accounting for an estimated 2.4 million hospital admissions and 527,000 deaths each year. About 85 percent of these deaths occur in developing countries, mainly in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

In June 2009, based in large part on clinical trials in Africa that demonstrated vaccine efficacy in impoverished, high-mortality settings, the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommended that rotavirus vaccines be included in all countries’ national immunisation programmes.

Cameroon introduced the rotavirus vaccine last month after ten other countries in Africa: Botswana, The Gambia, Ghana, Malawi, Morocco, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania, South Africa, and Sudan.

According to WHO, South Africa, the first African country to introduce rotavirus vaccines into its national immunisation programme in 2009, experienced dramatic decreases of 54 to 69 percent in rotavirus hospitalisations in both rural and urban settings within two years.

In Ethiopia, the introduction of rotavirus vaccines is estimated to save 3,700 lives, and 800,000 dollars in household expenditures annually. In Ghana, rotavirus vaccines are predicted to save 1,554 lives annually, and 53 percent of treatment costs.

Cameroon will hold a national immunisation campaign in the coming months. But some experts argue that the sanitation problem in Cameroon presents a major challenge to the effectiveness of this vaccine.

“There are some neighbourhoods in our major cities that for months go without potable water. Even when supplied, the quality is very doubtful,” says Obed Fung, health expert at the Foretia Foundation that supports development in Cameroon.

According to the African Development Bank (ADB), only about 45 percent of the rural population has access to drinking water against 77 percent in urban areas. An estimated 13.5 percent of rural people have access to proper hygiene and sanitation compared to 17 percent in urban areas.

Women and girls shoulder the largest burden in collecting water; 15 percent of urban and 18 percent of rural populations have to rely on improved drinking water sources more than 30 minutes walk away. It is mostly girls and women who have to fetch the water.

“Poor access to water and sanitation could hinder the success of this campaign but it is important that we focus on water-borne illnesses especially diarrhoeal diseases and seek ways of curbing outbreaks,” Noulna said. “While the country may be facing water scarcity and poor hygiene, there is a need to avoid the worst case scenario of a sudden outbreak.”

But there is suspicion and mistrust of vaccines among different communities in Cameroon.

“The national immunisation programme in Cameroon now administers nine different vaccines for children and the public think that this treatment is exaggerated. It is always the case because they do not understand the public health risk of having just one victim with a viral attack,” Dr. Paul Onambele at the district hospital in capital Yaounde told IPS.

Rumours have been circulated that public health officials were administering vaccines to sterilise women, Onambele said.

A study by the EPI found that 33 percent of families are opposed to vaccination of children and pregnant women due to religious and traditional beliefs.

“These controversies over the efficacy, safety, and morality of immunisation have continued to impede vaccination efforts in Cameroon, most especially in the northern part of Cameroon which is greatly influenced by beliefs stemming from Nigerian communities against vaccination,” Onambele said.

Haman Alima, a nursing mother in a Yaounde neighbourhood says: “I grew up and we never used to be vaccinated but we are all fine. I only vaccinate my child because I cannot refuse while in the hospital.”

Such attitudes are dangerous. “Our country is in turbulent times with a drop in immunisation coverage, inequality in coverage among districts and cities, and most importantly, the recent resurgence of polio,” Clarisse Loe Loumou from GAVI told IPS.

According to EPI, 62 percent of the health centres do not involve local associations and NGOs in the promotion of vaccination.

However, GAVI and EPI intend to achieve a 90 percent level of involvement by increasing efforts already made by using civil society platforms to reach communities and give local people ownership over vaccination.

Child refugees from Central African Republic in Cameroon’s eastern border town of Garoua-Boula share a plate of rice in the early morning. Credit: Monde Kingsley Nfor/IPS

By Monde Kingsley Nfor
Garoua-Boula, Cameroon, Mar 18 2014 (IPS)

Abdul Karim arrived in Cameroon’s eastern border town of Garoua-Boula from Central African Republic’s Yaloke district at the end of February as part the largest influx of refugees into Cameroon.

In February, some 30,000 refugees — the largest number since the crisis began in CAR last March — crossed the border into Cameroon, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR). And the small border town of Garoua-Boulai is struggling to meet the basic needs of both refugees and local residents.“Over 100 trucks came in from CAR with refugees yesterday and some are already arriving today.” -- Ngotio Koeke, the Cameroon Army Commander in Garoua-Boulai

Since their arrival, Karim and 32 members of his family, have been sharing 50-square-metre UNHCR tent, in a temporary refugee camp called Pont-Bascule, in Garoua-Boulai.

“I am here with my two wives, my children, my brother’s children and my mother. We left CAR with nothing. We solely depend on UHNCR for our needs,” he told IPS.

Karim and thousands of others of refugees are waiting for UNHCR Cameroon to register them and find them places to live. According to UNHCR aid workers, several citizens from Chad and Nigeria who were in CAR and fled the violence are currently in Garoua-Boulai.

Violence between Séléka-aligned Muslims and and the anti-Balaka Christian vigilante militias has killed two thousand people and displaced a quarter of the country’s four million population since Séléka rebels staged a coup last March. It is estimated that almost 130,000 refugees from CAR are currently in Cameroon.

Many of the refugees enter Cameroon’s eastern border town of Garoua-Boula by travelling on the cargo trucks that make deliveries to CAR’s capital, Bangui from Cameroon. Courtesy: Monde Kingsley Nfor

The number fleeing CAR increases daily. Each day hundreds of container trucks from Cameroon’s Douala International Airport make their way into CAR along the Garoua-Boulai highway. And each day almost a hundred trucks return to Garoua-Boulai carrying mainly Muslim refugees brutalised by the anti-Balaka Christian militia.

“Over 100 trucks came in from CAR with refugees yesterday and some are already arriving today. This has been the case since February,” Ngotio Koeke, the Cameroon Army Commander in Garoua-Boulai, told IPS.

Adamu Usman, a truck driver told IPS: “We have been transporting many refugees each time we offload the trucks and return to Cameroon from Bangui [CAR’s capital].”

“I can’t estimate how many refugees my truck carries but it could be close to a hundred people.”

He explained that during his most recent trip to CAR, he witnessed some of the most heart-breaking tragedies.

“A pregnant woman on board my truck suddenly began having labour pain and lost her baby before we reached Cameroon,” Usman said.

He explained that when they reached an anti-Balaka blockade and were forced to stop “the anti-Balaka young men entered the truck” and left soon after without harassing anyone because they saw “this woman lying down in blood with a dead baby by her.”

Most of the refugees are indigenous Mbororo people from western and northern CAR who have been targeted by militia groups for their wealth and livestock.

“We did not even know who Séléka was, but now we are the ones to suffer. It is not fair for every Muslim to be hated. We do not even look like the Chadian Muslims in CAR but they still attack us,” a Mbororo refugee named Abdul told IPS.

Abdul says even if the violence stops, he won’t return home.

“I don’t have anything. I left behind a herd of cattle. I will not get it back if I ever go back.”

While adults in the camp worry about the uncertain future that awaits them and their large families in Cameroon, children can be seen staying close to their mothers, sharing meals from common trays, while others play, enjoying their new environment and having numerous playmates.

But the situation in Garoua-Boulai is far from idyllic. The town’s mayor Esther Yaffo Ndoe told IPS that their small community does not have the capacity to deal with the refugees.

“Garoua-Boulia is town with a population of just 40,000 but today we are close to 80,000 people because of CAR crisis … the present needs of the town in terms of health, food and shelter exceed the capacity of the local administration and aid agencies. Refugees have been staying in the temporary site for more than two months today waiting to be transferred on,” Ndoe said.

She said amid the influx of refugees, it was becoming difficult for locals to survive “as scarce resources are now shared with refugees.”

Food has become scarce and the prices of goods and services are increasing. There has been an upsurge in prices of basic foods like rice and maize. A kilogram of rice that used to sell for one dollar, now sells for 1.50 dollars. Maize has increased from 80 cents to one dollar per kg.

But Ndoe complained that the presence of the refugees has increased insecurity and also juvenile delinquency in the town.

Buba, 24, a local farmer and a motorcycle rider in Garoua-Boulai, told IPS that his farm had been vandalised by some of the refugees.

“The sticks I used in the fencing on my farm have been partly destroyed by refugees. My farm is now exposed to cattle [who eat the crop]. Some of the refugees are harvesting premature crops from people’s farms.”

However, many of the refugees are engaged in petty trading, selling firewood and basic foodstuffs to their fellow refugees and to local residents for their survival.

But the health of the refugees is also a concern as many have problems related to malnutrition, diarrhoea, gastrointestinal disorders and malaria, according to Médecins sans Frontières (MSF).

“Until the refugees are settled in camps and have access to clean water, sanitation, food and shelter there is also risk of epidemics of cholera, measles and malaria. These risks are increased as the rains have started and vaccination is needed,” Jon Irwin, MSF’s head of Mission to Cameroon, told IPS.

He explained that they were focusing on caring for children suffering from acute malnutrition. According to UNHCR, 51 percent of the refugees from CAR in Cameroon are children under the age of 11.

“Malnourished children are more vulnerable to malaria and chest infections and this is exactly the trend we see with the Central African refugees in Cameroon,” Irwin said.

MSF has called for urgent mobilisation of humanitarian actors and stakeholders so that the necessary resources are made available to the refugee population who are scattered across Cameroon’s border. The MSF mobile clinic, which provides assistance to refugees in different towns and villages along Cameroon’s border, attends to about 70 people daily.

“Logistically, it is also difficult for our teams to provide care to refugees who are disseminated in several locations. We want to provide health care to a maximum number of people but we spend a lot of time travelling in order to access the refugees who need us more,” Irwin said.

The Cameroon government says that the uncontrolled number of health clinics and training institutions are responsible for the death and worsening medical conditions of many here. Credit: Monde Kingsley Nfor/IPS

By Monde Kingsley Nfor
YAOUNDE, Jan 23 2014 (IPS)

The Cameroonian government has begun a crackdown on illegal medical facilities and plans to shut down more than 524 medical training centres and 600 private clinics operating unlawfully in this Central African nation. 

“We are starting activities to bring order to the medical sector that has gone out of control. Most of [the illegal medical institutions] lack the training, appropriate staff, equipment and infrastructure to operate either as a medical training institution or a clinic,” Biwole Sida, the national health inspector in the Ministry of Public Health, told IPS.

“The uncontrolled number of clinics and training institutions are responsible for the death and worsening medical conditions of many innocent Cameroonians,” Sida added.

In the student residential area of Bonamusadi, in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, IPS visited one such clinic that is open 24 hours a day and which provides a wide array of medical services, including prenatal and paediatric care.

But a patient who was rushed to this private clinic with burn wounds was turned away and taken to the nearby government hospital, Yaounde Central Hospital, as the clinic has stopped admitting emergency patients.

“We now operate only by appointment since the government announced [it was] closing down clinics,” Helen Evinga, the clinic attendant, told IPS.

Francois Penda, a medical officer at the emergency unit of the Yaounde Central Hospital, who attended to the burn patient transferred there by the private clinic, explained that it would not be a bad thing if the illegal clinics were shut down.

“Most patients come to the hospital on the verge of death after they wasted time in small private clinics, which are not even equipped technically and professionally to handle emergency cases,” he told IPS.

“A [burn] accident like this is so complicated and requires very delicate and sophisticated medical resources. Any unprepared attempt [to treat the wound] will complicate the patient’s chances of recovery,” Penda said.

Costs of Public Health Care Prohibitive

However, some private clinic operators claim they are providing a much-needed service as the cost of medical care in government hospitals and clinics is prohibitive.

“There is a great need for the services of private clinics in Cameroon. The government structures fell short to satisfy all classes of patients, and are usually saturated with patients, making it difficult for them to receive fair treatment,” Maxwel Fonyu, a laboratory technician and owner of small clinic in Yaounde, told IPS.

He argued that millions of people living in urban slums depend on the affordable medical assistance provided by these private clinics.

“In my clinic, for example, instead of demanding 10 dollars for a malaria test like in big hospitals, I only charge them one dollar to conduct malaria tests, and prescribe and sell medicines that are affordable and vital for their treatment,” Fonyu said.

Illegal Clinics Government’s Fault

Bidjogo Atangana, secretary-general of Cameroon’s National Medical Council, told IPS that the existence of the illegal and ill-equipped clinics was partially because of the government’s liberalisation of the sector some two decades ago.

“In the 1990s people were authorised to open health clinics as a Common Initiative Group (CIG) [a non-profit], which is one of the easiest means to acquire a licence for such ventures,” Atangana said.

Today the National Medical Council wants all medical centres that have been operating as CIGs to close down and obtain proper qualifications and medical licences, which many do not have.

“Nobody will hence own such a structure without authority from the Cameroon National Medical Council, and the training offered in some health institutions must also be checked,” Atangana said.

But according to Etienne Tsou from the health science faculty at Cameroon’s Catholic University, there is a need to regulate more than just the clinics, as most training institutions operate illicitly.

“I don’t see how a medical professional can be trained on the job and not have a formal education. Most retired nurses and doctors think they are qualified to open their own centres and train others when they don’t have what it takes,” he told IPS.

“The sector may lack qualified professionals, but putting the lives of innocent citizens in the hands of charlatans will lead to a bigger public health problem. There are, however, many Cameroonians with good graduate diplomas but their services are exported to countries that pay higher [salaries].”

Lack of Trained Staff

According to the Ministry of Health, about 5,000 Cameroonian medical doctors are currently plying their trade abroad.

Tetanye Ekoe, the vice president of the National Order of Medical Doctors in Cameroon, said that out of 4,200 medical doctors residing in Cameroon, only about half are practicing as medical doctors.

Of the other half, about 1,000 are on secondment to the Ministry of Health where they perform mostly administrative tasks. The remaining 1,100 are either with the Faculty of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University of Yaoundé I, with NGOs or the private sector.

More than 500 medical doctors and 5,000 nurses graduate annually in Cameroon.

But Ekoe explained that the limited number of practicing medical doctors in the country makes the World Health Organisation doctor-patient ratio of one doctor per 10,000 inhabitants unrealistic in Cameroon – a country of about 21 million people.

“The real ratio is closer to one doctor per 40,000 inhabitants, and in remote areas such as the Far North and Eastern Provinces, the ratio is closer to one doctor per 50,000 inhabitants,” Ekoe said.

Baka from Ngoyla, near Cameroon’s Nki National Park, hold up a map of the forest. The dark red areas are those they have been restricted from entering which are of social, economic and cultural interest to them. Credit: Ngala Killian Chimtom/IPS

By Sarah Tucker
WASHINGTON, Jan 15 2014 (IPS)

A recent article by IPS journalist Ngala Killian Chimtom described the struggle of the Baka of Cameroon to maintain their indigenous culture and livelihoods while coping with the rapidly-changing environment around them.

The Baka are hunter-gatherers indigenous to Cameroon’s southeastern forests. They are masters of the forest in every way, experts in the medicinal, spiritual, and nutritional qualities of the plants and animals around them. However, as Chimtom explains, the Baka today are threatened on multiple fronts, and “consumed with questions about their future.”

The Baka are trying to manage an unprecedented and complex set of challenges, unlike anyone else in their peoples’ history. Logging, mining, and poaching have greatly reduced the forest’s richness by driving away animals and reducing biodiversity. Conservation efforts have made once fruitful forest land off-limits to human activity. Although they legally have the right to carry out some subsistence activities in certain protected areas, the Baka often fall victim to brutal intimidation, arrest, and even torture at the hands of those charged with enforcing environmental protection.

With the forest jeopardised and the outside world quickly approaching, this generation of Baka children faces a more ambiguous and threatening future than their ancestors ever knew. The term “marginalisation” fits the Baka exceedingly well – they find themselves pushed to the margins in almost every way imaginable. They are forced to subsist on the outer edges of rich forests they once knew as their own. Their rights seem to be penciled in as an afterthought in key legislation affecting their ancestral lands and lifestyle.

But the biggest travesty is their marginalisation in our minds. Their story of struggle is written as a footnote to the narrative of Cameroon’s push to develop. In pursuit of economic growth, the government has prioritised exploitation of forest resources and urban expansion at the expense of its striking cultural and ecological diversity. As a result, the culture and environment that form the foundation of Baka identity are under threat.

Sarah Tucker, a researcher and Baka education specialist, says Cameroon’s Baka are trying to manage an unprecedented and complex set of challenges, unlike anyone else in their peoples’ history. Courtesy: Stephen Cashmere

We often describe the loss of the forest and Baka culture in the past tense. News media, nonprofit organisations, and researchers decry the degradation of the Baka way of life, but often speak as if it has already happened, and there is nothing to be done to stop it.

The truth is that this assault is happening before our eyes. We have a unique opportunity to take action to stop the forces in motion from repeating the same destruction that has played out in countless indigenous contexts worldwide.

This battle starts with education.

Contrary to popular belief, there is high demand for schooling among Baka communities. The fact that so many Baka parents choose to send their children to school is a testament to the fact that they are wary of what the future holds. It shows that they are deeply concerned that traditional forest education will not be enough to prepare their children for the challenges ahead.

Developing approaches that truly incorporate and validate Baka culture is the most challenging and exciting opportunity before us. Many view education as a “civilising” tool, used to transition the Baka into the “modern” world. But this perception over-simplifies their aspirations, and fails to acknowledge that it is possible to educate youth in a way that reinforces their traditions while also preparing them for their encounters with “modernity.”

The Baka have been changing and adapting to the world around them for millennia, as with all people on earth: they are just as “modern” as any city or town dweller could claim to be. A truly adapted education system will enable Baka children to make informed and empowered decisions about their own future.

We must understand that all education systems – kindergarten classrooms, prestigious universities, and Baka traditional education included – consist of a set of cultural priorities and assumptions about the future. Inclusive and adapted education strategies will enable the Baka to gain the skills they need to thrive in their forest home, as well as adapt to the rapidly encroaching outside world.

Done well, this will instill pride in Baka youth about their indigenous identity and heritage, empower them to defend their rights and interests, and help them choose their own path in life.

Sarah Tucker is a researcher and Baka education specialist. She is the co-founder of Chasing Two Rabbits at Once, a Baka education and empowerment organisation in Cameroon. Her work has been recognised by World Learning and Opportunity Africa.

Téte António, Permanent Observer of the African Union to the UN, briefs the Security Council on the African-led International Support Mission to the Central African Republic (MISCA) on Jan. 6. Credit: UN Photo/Evan Schneider

By Ngala Killian Chimtom
YAOUNDÉ, Cameroon, Jan 13 2014 (IPS)

“I can’t wait to return back home,” Celeste Edjangue, a refugee from the Central African Republic (CAR) now in Cameroon’s East Region, told IPS.

“It’s a wonderful feeling, and I am hopeful this mayhem will finally come to an end, so we can go back home,” said Denise Atteh, another CAR refugee.“You can’t imagine what it means to leave your country, your home and property and run to another country." -- refugee Denise Atteh

Edjangue and Atteh are just two of the 52,000 Central African refugees who have fled sectarian violence in their country.

Their newfound optimism comes in the wake of the resignation of the interim president of the CAR, Michel Djotodia, along with his prime minister, Nicolas Tiangaye. Djotodia had seized power in a March coup.

Both men stepped down on Friday, Jan. 10 during the Extraordinary Summit of the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) held Jan. 9 and 10 in Chad.

“It was long overdue,” Atteh told IPS, a smile on her face.

“You can’t imagine what it means to leave your country, your home and property and run to another country. It’s hard to bear,” she said.

In the capital Bangui, there were celebrations in the streets when the news of Djotodia’s resignation broke.

“People are hopeful that at long last, the killing, the maiming, the horrible bloodshed could be coming to an end,” Cameroon’s interim ambassador to the CAR, Nicolas Nzoyum, told IPS by phone from Bangui.

He said the hopes for a return to peace are heightened by the fact that the Séleka rebels who helped Djotodia to power had long turned against him.

The patience of the international community for Djotodia had also petered out, and he had been under intense pressure to step down.

Announcing Djotodia’s resignation on Jan. 10 in N’Djamena, Chad, Ahmat Allami, secretary-general of the ECCAS, said that “if Djotodia could not succeed in restoring peace, he should make way for someone else.”

Under the Charter of the National Transitional Council or parliament led by Alexandre Ferdinand Nguendet, an interim president to replace Djotodia has to be chosen within 15 days from the day of Djotodia’s departure.

The National Transition Council (NTC), or provisional parliament, will begin consultations on Monday with politicians and civil society members on electing a new interim president.

Deputy NTC speaker Lea Koyassoum Doumtasaid that the new leader “must be someone who can unite Central Africans, restore security, ease tensions, put everybody back to work, and pave the way for free, democratic and transparent elections.”

But Djotodia’s departure could also spell even greater problems for the war-torn nation. With a weak transitional government, the likelihood of a speedy return to peace remains uncertain.

According to Cameroonian analyst Prof. Ntuda Ebode, the nature of the conflict itself will make a return to peace quite difficult.

“The conflict is multi-faceted. Initially it was a political conflict as the Séleka rebels sought to take power by overthrowing president François Bozize,” he said.

“But once the president was overthrown, the new leadership failed to maintain internal cohesion, and the consequence was that the conflict spiralled out of its purely political realm, and became at the same time social and military,” he told IPS. “And the religious schisms are so deep that it will take a lot of time to heal.”

A statement from U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon read out to heads of state and governments of the ECCAS meeting in N’Djamena further confirms these fears.

“The events of last year have caused profound damage in the relationships between Muslim and Christian communities in the CAR. Distrust is high and violence has fuelled anger and a thirst for revenge,” Ban said.

“The security situation has gravely deteriorated in recent weeks, with unprecedented levels of communal violence. The danger of further upheaval along religious lines is real and poses a long-term danger to the country.”

At least 1,000 people have been killed since the crisis broke out last year, and over a million have fled their homes.

The African Union has deployed some 4,000 soldiers to CAR along with 1,600 troops deployed by the former colonial power, France.

Sabina Shey Nkabiy tills land cleared of eucalyptus trees / Stephen Ndzerem

By Ngala Killian Chimtom
Kumbo, Cameroon , Jan 9 2014 (IPS)

A project to reclaim agricultural land lost to eucalyptus plantations is bearing fruit in Cameroon.

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