Cameroon has climbed eight spots to 130th out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index, according to the annual report released on Friday, May 3, by Reporters Without Borders (RSF). Despite this improvement from its 138th position in the 2023 edition, RSF underscores that Cameroon remains one of Africa’s most perilous countries for journalists, despite the proliferation of media outlets, including over 600 newspapers, around 200 radio stations, and more than 60 television channels. The NGO points out that journalists operate in a hostile and uncertain environment.

RSF strongly criticizes the political pressures journalists face. The NGO states that journalists who adopt a critical and independent editorial stance are exposed to significant threats and pressures, particularly when the interests of those in power are involved. This situation is worsened by the head of state’s control over all institutions, promoting self-censorship and causing media alignment with the authorities or certain influential figures.

Journalists in Cameroon frequently encounter verbal and physical assaults, arbitrary arrests, detentions, gag orders, abductions, and risks of assassination. RSF specifically cites the tragic case of Martinez Zogo, the head of private radio station Amplitude FM, who was abducted, tortured, and found dead in January 2023. The NGO also expresses regret over the lack of decriminalization of press offenses on the agenda, as well as the absence of guarantees for access to information and source protection.

Moreover, RSF emphasizes the precarious conditions under which Cameroonian journalists, particularly those in private media, work, compromising their independence.

Each year, RSF publishes its World Press Freedom Index, evaluating the conditions under which journalism is practiced in 180 countries and territories. This year’s report reveals a significant drop in the political indicator, affecting even top-ranking countries like Norway, Denmark, and Sweden. At the bottom of the ranking, countries like Afghanistan, Syria, and Eritrea have seen their political index fall, replacing Asian nations such as China, Vietnam, and North Korea in their previous positions.

Source: sbbc

A scuffle ensued and blows were exchanged when thousands of university graduates in Cameroon swamped the University of Buea (UB) campus to apply for the French language proficiency test, Test de Connaissance du Français (TCF), a requirement to obtain a Canadian visa.

Canada has become a new destination for thousands of graduates from Cameroon, in particular, and Africa in general, following the 2022-24 Canadian government immigration plan that provides opportunities for skilled workers.

Apart from graduates seeking jobs, information from the Canadian immigration service also says international students are a top priority in the country’s new immigration targets, and the immigration streams that their applications feed into will contribute more than half of new permanent residents.

But, to benefit from these opportunities, applicants are supposed to show proof of mastery of the French language, according to the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada’s 2024-25 Departmental Plan.

Information from the university language examination centres in Cameroon indicated that graduates and other applicants who are successful in the exams that will be written in May 2024, will be eligible to continue the processes to obtain visas.

Chaotic scenes

The UB authorities were ill-prepared to accommodate a crowd which, according to estimates, included up to 4,000 people.

“We were surprised by the huge crowd, because Buea University is just one of the [exam] centres. The other two include the French Institute in Douala, and Yaounde. You can just imagine the numbers at the other centres,” Professor Apuge Michael Etuge, the dean of the faculty of arts at UB, told University World News.

The registration process, the authorities say, requires applicants to register their names at the designated centres, thereby obtaining a code which they need to pay their registration fees of about XAF210,000 (about US$343) per person at the bank, before returning to the centres to deposit their receipts.

Following the unexpected crowd turnout, the process became rowdy, with applicants tussling for space to get served first.

“There was scrambling as a result of poor organisation by the school authorities. There was no security to control [the applicants] and restore some order,” Peter Ngole from the University of Bamenda, and one of the applicants, told University World News.

According to Etuge, the registration process was on a first-come, first-served basis, but some applicants wanted to outsmart their mates, which led to some disorder.

Cameroon higher education authorities condemned the chaotic scene, blaming it on poor organisation.

“The registration process in all state universities in Cameroon is done online. The organisers of this language exam should have followed the same procedure,” Higher Education Minister Jacques Fame Ndongo said over state radio in reaction to the incident.

However, the organisers of the language exam said the application process had no intermediaries to avoid the scamming of applicants that often characterised such examination procedures, a notice at the application centre noted.

Graduate unemployment

The scramble for this language test to obtain visas, academics say, shows the high rate of graduate unemployment in the country, which has increased during the past two years. As a result, many are seeking to leave Cameroon for greener pastures.

“When graduates can’t find jobs in their [home] country they are obliged to seek elsewhere. This is the same scenario all over Africa,” Professor Emmanuel Yenshu of UB’s department of sociology told University World News.

An estimated 23.6 million young Africans (aged 15-35), including graduates, are unemployed, with this figure projected to grow to 27 million by 2030. The need for jobs elsewhere is, therefore, critical, an article in The Conversation stated.

Canada as a study destination

Apart from graduates seeking jobs, information from the Canadian immigration service says international students are a top priority in the country’s new targets.

The report says Canada is seeing a surge of international student applications for higher education after a period of enrolment declines during the COVID pandemic, with a good number coming from Africa.

“Canada’s expanding immigration programme means more opportunities for international students in the country to remain after graduating from Canadian higher education institutions,” a December 2023 news release by the Canadian government stated.

“We recognise the significant social, cultural and economic benefits that international students bring to Canada, and for those benefits to continue, we must address challenges to the integrity of the International Student Program,” the release noted.

It recognises that international students “are talented, bright and deserving of a positive experience as they pursue their studies in Canada”.

Eight of Canada’s top-10 fastest-growing student populations are from African countries with Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal and Algeria among the top-10 on the list, according to a news report in Business Insider Africa.

This is despite the challenges – including racial prejudices – that students appear to face during their visa approval processes.

In the five years between 2018 and 30 April 2023, officials at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada reportedly rejected 59% of the visa applications from English-speaking Africans and 74% from French-speaking Africans seeking to study in Canada’s colleges and universities.

In 2022, the disapproval rates were ere 62% for applicants from English-speaking African countries and 66% for applicants from French-speaking African countries, University World News reported.

Apart from Canada, African students constituted nearly half of all foreign students in France in 2023, University World News reported on 25 April.

The report said, of that number, the Sub-Saharan African region led with 95,285 students, almost 24% of all the foreign students (412,087) in France. The 95,285 figure represented an increase of 34% over the past five years.

The reasons for the popularity of France among Africans seeking university education in Europe is attributable to a number of factors, including language and the search for quality education abroad, the report said.

Source: University World News

Second Vice Foreign Minister Kang In-sun has met with Cameroon’s Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute in the Central African country and discussed an upcoming leaders’ summit of South Korea and African nations, Seoul’s foreign ministry said Wednesday.

Kang’s courtesy call on Dion Ngute on Tuesday (local time) came during her weeklong two-nation trip as a presidential envoy to the continent this week that also took her to Senegal.

In the meeting, Kang highlighted that the South Korea-Africa summit, set for June 4-5 in Seoul, will serve as a chance for the two countries to significantly boost bilateral cooperation and asked for Cameroon’s support and participation in the gathering.

Kang also expressed expectations that the cooperation with Cameroon will continue to deepen in a wide range of areas, as it has in ICT, health care, agriculture and job training, through robust high-level talks and other exchanges.

Kang separately met with Cameroon’s presidential chief of staff, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh, and acting Foreign Minister Oumarou Chinmoun.

In Cameroon, Kang also had a meeting with South Korean officials from the state aid agency, KOICA, and those from other development aid nonprofit organizations.

Source: en.yna

Hundreds of thousands of workers across Cameroon are observing International Labor Day on May 1 by marching against abuses they say include illegal dismissals and failure to pay the $70 monthly minimum wage, even as the cost of living increases.

Trade unions say tens of thousands of trained teachers, doctors and nurses have fled the country in the past year because of unemployment and tough working conditions, with monthly salaries at half the minimum.

Celestin Bama, secretary general of the Confederation of Cameroon Workers Trade Union, or CSTC, addressed workers gathered at the May 20 Boulevard in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde.

Bama said the government of Cameroon has not done anything substantial within the past 30 years to improve the conditions of workers. Thirty years ago, Cameroon imposed a 70 percent salary cut on government workers, Bama said, adding that there is a growing need to increase wages as prices of basic commodities have spiked 40 percent.

Cameroon trade unions say a 20 percent fuel price hike imposed by the government in February without a corresponding salary increase has also made living very difficult.

Anong Jacob, a member of the Cameroon Teachers Trade Union, or CATTU, said some private school owners pay teachers as little as $50 a month.

“What do you expect from a teacher who earns 40,000 or 30,000 francs in a town like Yaounde or Douala or Bamenda, Bafoussam? What quality of shoe or dress would you expect them to put [wear] and come to school? You see the poor teacher with twisted shirts, with twisted shoes and all of that. Sometimes they don’t have money to pay electricity bills. They suffer a lot of humiliation,” Anong said. “I think the government should put some policies [in place] to see that proprietors and proprietresses respect the minimum wage.”

Cameroon’s agreed minimum wage is $70 per month. Hilary Mbuwel, a teacher and social critic, said private employers do not respect the minimum wage because the government does not police private companies.

“Proprietors know that if they do not respect the minimum wage, nobody calls them to account and so, since there is nobody to call them to account, nobody to punish them, they do it with impunity,” Mbuwel said.

The government says there has been a 10 percent pay raise since 2023, but workers say with inflation so high, the raise is negligible. The government says the inflation rate is about 8 percent.

Cameroon Minister of Labor and Social Security Gregoire Owona said the fragile world economy and several armed conflicts that the government has to manage make it impossible for the state and private investors to satisfy the needs of all workers.

Owona said limited financial resources make it difficult for the government of Cameroon to solve the myriad problems affecting workers. He added that Cameroon President Paul Biya has ordered officials to make sure the wages of all government workers are paid regularly and as agreed in their employment contracts, while the possibility of improved workers’ rights, decent working conditions and fair compensation are being examined.

Owona said the Cameroon government has instructed police and the National Insurance Fund to investigate and punish private employers who neither register their staff members to social security schemes nor respect the minimum wage.

The government says respecting agreed wages and providing retirement benefits and disability income to qualified workers and their families will reduce the current massive migration of workers for lucrative jobs elsewhere, especially in Europe and North America.

Cameroon says at least 10,000 trained professionals have fled the central African state within the past year because of unemployment, poor pay or poor working conditions.

Source: VOA

Local and city council mayors in Cameroon have signed a charter which reflects their desire to take birth registration efforts more seriously in all their respective municipalities. The mayors took the resolve at the end of a recent two-day forum in Yaounde which laid bare all facets of problems hindering civil status registration in the country.

The document signed by the mayors also contains proposals on which some action is required by the government in order to improve birth registration figures in the country.

The Yaounde forum – the first of its kind – brought together all the 374 local and city council mayors, heads of secondary civil status registration centers, civil status registration secretaries, civil society actors involved in citizen action, representatives from government ministries, departments and agencies, as well as those of financial and technical partners supporting the government of Cameroon in civil status registration matters.

Speakers during the forum included Decentralisation and Local Development Minister Georges Elanga Obam, UNICEF country representative for Cameroon Nadine Perault and a UNICEF consultant and CRVS expert, Cornelius Williams. They all stressed the importance of birth registration, saying it is the starting point of a human being’s legal existence. They said they hope the forum will provide the necessary impetus for joint action that will prioritize birth registration and make Cameroon an exemplary country in the domain within the central African sub region.

Some proposals contained in the charter, put together during several workshops that characterized the forum, include the need to extend the legal deadline for birth registration beyond the current 90 days from the date of birth of a child, the need to increase financial resources to councils and for government to simplify birth registration requirements and the entire process itself, among other issues.

At the end of the forum, Perault said: “[I’m] inspired by the commitment of Cameroon mayors at the first birth registration forum. Their dedication to improving birth registration systems will help provide children with a strong foundation for a better future.”

She added: “The mayors’ forum on birth registration in Cameroon marks a significant step towards achieving universal birth registration. Let’s amplify our efforts to ensure that no child is left without a legal identity. We have the power to make 2024 the year of birth registration in Cameroon.”

On the commitment taken by the mayors, Elanga Obam remarked: “You have made strong commitments in the charter you just signed. You will be judged by the results achieved through efforts to reduce the seven million Cameroonians without legal identity. History will judge you.”

Source: biometricupdate

The 5th Cameroonian Household Survey (ECam5), published by the National Institute of Statistics (INS) on April 24, revealed that nearly two in five Cameroonians live below the national poverty line, estimated at CFA813 ($1.42) per day and person. The INS report states that “with this threshold, about 10 million people live in poverty in 2022, for a total population estimated at around 27 million inhabitants.”

The INS attributes this situation to several factors, including insufficient economic growth, distortions in wealth distribution, and various endogenous and exogenous shocks related to the Russo-Ukrainian conflict and fluctuations in global commodity and export prices. The report also notes that, as has been the case for years, poverty is more prevalent in rural areas, with a 56.3% incidence, compared to 21.6% in urban areas. “The regions of the Far North, North-West, North, Adamawa, and East are the poorest, with poverty levels above the national average. Consumption inequality remains high, as the wealthiest 20% of households have a consumption 10 times higher than the poorest 20%,” the report states.

Most of the regions considered poorer in Cameroon face security challenges. These include the Far North, where the Nigerian Islamist sect Boko Haram is active; the North-West, where separatist demands have intensified in recent years; the Adamawa region, which faces kidnappings targeting mainly herders and traders; and the East, which borders the Central African Republic and suffers from the actions of armed militias from that country that roam the border with Cameroon.

Source: Business in Cameroon

In a major move to alleviate the plight of Southern Cameroon refugees in Cross River State, an organization, Biakwan Light Green Initiative (BLGI) has donated farm seedlings, food items and clothing to the refugees.

The benefitting refugees who are seeking safety in the Cross River have formed a significant population in the Biakwan community of the Boki local government area due to the ongoing conflict in the country’s southern region.

Presenting the items, The Executive Director of BLGI, Mr. Peter Bette said the idea of the support was to reduce pressure on the community forest.

In addition to this, the support will also provide livelihood to women, and enhance capacity through training to secure women’s rights and food security pool.

Odey Oyama, a conservationist, commended the environmental group for the initiative stating that empowerment would serve its purpose.

He encouraged the displaced persons to key into the programme as Nigeria and Cameroon share a complex and dynamic diplomatic relationship.

The Board Chairman of NGO Coalition for Environment (NGOCE) Dr. Odiga Odiga urged the refugees and some of the community members who also benefited to take of the opportunity and ensure they engage in all activities.

The renowned environmentalist assured the beneficiaries that the project would promote sustainable agriculture and agroforestry like planting indigenous fruit trees and home gardens to enhance biodiversity, and mitigate climate change.

The Town Council Chairman Mr. Joseph praised BLGI and pledged his support for the project, noting that it would strengthen collaboration and foster relationships between the refugees and the host community.

Responding to the gesture, the leader of the refugees, Elder Ben Kachi appreciated the team for the gifts and support.

Source: Sunnewsonline

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations today held an official launch here of its Green Cities Initiative, which is already being piloted in Cameroon, with seven municipalities submitting letters of intent to join the initiative.

In remarks at the launch event, FAO Director-General QU Dongyu noted that with two thirds of the world’s population expected to live in cities by 2050 – urban areas are facing major challenges.

“Municipalities are at the frontline of citizens’ expectations to improve their livelihoods and well-being, from accessing nutritious foods, adequate water, energy, and housing”, Qu said

They must also address “multiple challenges such as the impacts of the climate crisis, environment degradation, waste management and urban inequality, among others,” he added.

Enthusiastic welcome

Georges Elanga Obam, Cameroon’s Minister of Decentralization and local development described the rapid growth of the country’s urban population and the associated challenges and said Cameroon could not but enthusiastically welcome FAO’s Green Cities Initiative.

The Yaoundé City Mayor, Luc Messi Atangana, also expressed his appreciation for the initiative.

In Cameroon, the number of city dwellers has increased by 50 percent between 2010 and 2020, with more than 15 million urban residents now, half of them living in Yaoundé and Douala. Since March 2023, a pilot Green Cities Initiative project has been underway in the capital’s Yaoundé 4 district. Its implementation, focusing on a micro-project for training of waste collectors who visit households and collect waste for composting, the process of composting itself and promotion of urban agriculture, has attracted interest from other municipalities in Yaoundé and elsewhere.

At today’s meeting, seven more municipalities formally handed over letters of intent to Qu to join the initiative. The Director-General expressed FAO’s eagerness to support them with innovative actions on the ground with impact to be upscaled and expanded.

Qu told the municipalities’ mayors he was confident that in partnership with FAO they could make their cities “greener, healthier, and more sustainable through among others expanding urban forestry and agriculture and creation of green jobs for the younger generation.”

Vibrant inclusive cities

FAO’s flagship Green Cities Initiative was launched globally in 2020. It envisions vibrant and inclusive cities where urban green and productive spaces catalyze climate resilience, social cohesion, and economic prosperity. It also aims at bridging the gap between urban and rural areas and between citizens and nature. The FAO GCI supports cities to develop through the availability and access to goods and services provided by urban and peri-urban forestry, agriculture as well as through the circular bioeconomy.

Building on FAO’s expertise on sustainable urban and peri urban agriculture and forestry, and urban food systems, the Green Cities Initiative supports local governments to plan, design and implement innovative green actions bringing together efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable agrifood systems, multifunctional green infrastructure, and natural resources management.

The Green Cities Initiative seeks to improve the livelihoods and well-being of urban and peri-urban populations in at least 100 cities (15 metropolitan, 40 intermediate and 45 small cities) around the world and aims to have 1000 cities join by 2030.

Culled from the FAO