With the numerous challenges Cameroon continues to face, most at times solution seekers tend to focus on issues like form of state, who gets appointed where and who gets funding for what, ignoring something which is very crucial : The actual policy of the state and it's leaderships view on what our society should be.
If you have read the Book, Communal Liberalism by President Paul Biya, and seen how lofty and ideal his concept of balancing western capitalism with African communal systems, The first question you would ask is, with all these, why is Cameroon still a struggling economy.
As a youth leader and civil society member in Cameroon, this question has bugged me. And I decided to do some careful observations in the sectors I understand well, which I believe could throw a light on the issue.
In a genuine Communal Liberalism system, Cooperative societies are the basis of its economic and business system.
As observed, the Cameroon Government funding policy especially in the Ministry of Agriculture, priority is often given to Cooperative ventures. But the big problem here is that in Cameroon, the population is somehow just not aware or maybe not interested in cooperative ventures. Most at times because of the attractiveness of government funding, a capitalist individual will create a cooperative, or CIG and get his friends and family to sign the papers, to give it a cooperative look just so he can get government benefits, at the end, despite the government efforts to promote communities, only capitalist individuals succeed.
This holds same for NGOs and associations; before a group becomes an NGO in Cameroon, it must first be registered as an association. This association will exist for some years, and after significant impact can then be upgraded into an NGO. An Association requires at least 8 members, but as you already know, very few of them are genuine, a project promoter will often draft the concept alone, then beg a few friends and family to back him up with signatures, at the end of the day, only he is a beneficiary or sometimes even if the community benefits, transparency, effectiveness are not ensured, after all he brought the project, and beneficiaries who complain may risk not benefitting.
An area where communal liberalism has worked well, is the microfinance sector, where a growing number of microfinance institutions have been very useful to their members and helped to move especially farmers to formal banking, though allot still needs to be done.
Another successful area has been the Royalties management organizations for artists and creatives despite several attempts by capitalist individuals to take advantage of the system. In fact one of the biggest challenges of Communal Liberalism in Cameroon is that most often, leaders in civil society, cooperative and parastatal institutions, positions are hardly democratically elected or at least part of the communities they lead and as such as most likely to want to exploit the system, instead of making the system work. Most at times, because the population doesn’t take its responsibilities into its hands, especially when it concerns financial contributions, as such capitalist leaders, will use allot of their financial resources to help the system to function, and once they gain leadership position, they have to recover their spent money most at times unrealistically and at the detriment of the population.
In neighboring Nigeria, Capitalism is the religion; and because of the general ineffectiveness and inefficiency of African governments, this leads to very big chaotic yet successful cities and at the same time abjectly poor villages. Also in such capitalistic African countries, the gap between rich and poor is very huge. However the hope of the people always lies on the fact that in such capitalistic societies, a poor man has very huge chances of becoming rich through his own means. In general, the state institutions often live a life, very distinct from the communities they serve.
To conclude, I would say in Cameroon, the leader and his fellow citizens are not in sync probably because the citizens don’t understand the policy and need heavy education in the sector, or because the population admires fully capitalistic states and would rather want Cameroon to become one.
I invite experts in the sector to carryout research to bring clear statistics into the issue and why not propose ways out.
If you have read the Book, Communal Liberalism by President Paul Biya, and seen how lofty and ideal his concept of balancing western capitalism with African communal systems, The first question you would ask is, with all these, why is Cameroon still a struggling economy.
As a youth leader and civil society member in Cameroon, this question has bugged me. And I decided to do some careful observations in the sectors I understand well, which I believe could throw a light on the issue.
In a genuine Communal Liberalism system, Cooperative societies are the basis of its economic and business system.
As observed, the Cameroon Government funding policy especially in the Ministry of Agriculture, priority is often given to Cooperative ventures. But the big problem here is that in Cameroon, the population is somehow just not aware or maybe not interested in cooperative ventures. Most at times because of the attractiveness of government funding, a capitalist individual will create a cooperative, or CIG and get his friends and family to sign the papers, to give it a cooperative look just so he can get government benefits, at the end, despite the government efforts to promote communities, only capitalist individuals succeed.
This holds same for NGOs and associations; before a group becomes an NGO in Cameroon, it must first be registered as an association. This association will exist for some years, and after significant impact can then be upgraded into an NGO. An Association requires at least 8 members, but as you already know, very few of them are genuine, a project promoter will often draft the concept alone, then beg a few friends and family to back him up with signatures, at the end of the day, only he is a beneficiary or sometimes even if the community benefits, transparency, effectiveness are not ensured, after all he brought the project, and beneficiaries who complain may risk not benefitting.
An area where communal liberalism has worked well, is the microfinance sector, where a growing number of microfinance institutions have been very useful to their members and helped to move especially farmers to formal banking, though allot still needs to be done.
Another successful area has been the Royalties management organizations for artists and creatives despite several attempts by capitalist individuals to take advantage of the system. In fact one of the biggest challenges of Communal Liberalism in Cameroon is that most often, leaders in civil society, cooperative and parastatal institutions, positions are hardly democratically elected or at least part of the communities they lead and as such as most likely to want to exploit the system, instead of making the system work. Most at times, because the population doesn’t take its responsibilities into its hands, especially when it concerns financial contributions, as such capitalist leaders, will use allot of their financial resources to help the system to function, and once they gain leadership position, they have to recover their spent money most at times unrealistically and at the detriment of the population.
In neighboring Nigeria, Capitalism is the religion; and because of the general ineffectiveness and inefficiency of African governments, this leads to very big chaotic yet successful cities and at the same time abjectly poor villages. Also in such capitalistic African countries, the gap between rich and poor is very huge. However the hope of the people always lies on the fact that in such capitalistic societies, a poor man has very huge chances of becoming rich through his own means. In general, the state institutions often live a life, very distinct from the communities they serve.
To conclude, I would say in Cameroon, the leader and his fellow citizens are not in sync probably because the citizens don’t understand the policy and need heavy education in the sector, or because the population admires fully capitalistic states and would rather want Cameroon to become one.
I invite experts in the sector to carryout research to bring clear statistics into the issue and why not propose ways out.
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