In 2021, the humanitarian community continued to support those in need, placing protection at the centre of its response. Learning from and building on past efforts, humanitarian actors will continue to respond and adapt their response to the various shocks impacting populations in Cameroon, such as violence against civilians, natural disasters, and epidemics, including the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, 3.9 million women, men, girls, and boys will need humanitarian assistance in Cameroon. The humanitarian response will target 2.6 million people living in crisis areas with multisectoral humanitarian assistance. The aim is to reduce their mortality, morbidity, protection needs, and vulnerabilities while improving their resilience. The response will particularly consider internally displaced persons, returnees, refugees, and host communities. People living in crisis-affected regions faced numerous humanitarian challenges. In the Far North region, continued attacks by non-State armed groups and the escalation of intercommunal clashes in Logone Birni led to further displacement. Violence is compounded by chronic climate challenges, such as the 2021 drought, affects households’ livelihoods. In the North-West and South-West regions, civilians and basic services, education, and healthcare are repeatedly targeted. These attacks constitute grave human rights violations and abuses. In the eastern regions, the number of refugees from the Central African Republic is rising, increasing pressure on already limited resources and services. To respond to the most acute needs of affected populations, the humanitarian community will be guided by the following strategic priorities. First, we will continue to support the Government of Cameroon in assuming its primary responsibility and ensuring all affected people are protected and reached with assistance. Moreover, the humanitarian community will continue to reinforce its response’s quality, timeliness, and efficiency in an operational context that remains complex and challenging. We will also continue exploiting and maximizing synergies with development and peacebuilding actors to respond to the populations’ vulnerabilities, address the underlying root causes and decrease humanitarian needs. Finally, our planned response will pursue efforts to ensure accountability to affected people by taking account of, giving account to, and being held to account by the people we seek to assist. However, to succeed, the humanitarian community needs a conducive environment for humanitarian actors to safely carry out principled and effective humanitarian actions and to reach and assist all those in need. Therefore, I call on all armed actors to ensure the protection of aid workers, to fully uphold international human rights and humanitarian law, and to respect the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, independence, and impartiality. We also need resources. To assist the most vulnerable populations and provide a lifeline to millions, we will need US$ 376 million. Therefore, I am thankful to our donors for their generous support in mitigating the impact of the various crises in Cameroon. Their renewed commitment in 2022 is required more than ever. I am grateful for the commitment of the Government and all humanitarian partners. Let’s continue to respond and coordinate together, advocate together, and move forward together for the benefit of the people we serve. Matthias Z. NAAB
Humanitarian Coordinator https://reliefweb.int/report/cameroon/cameroon-2022-humanitarian-response-plan              

Brendaline wakes up every day at about 5am in order to catch the butchers before the other “buyam sellams” (a local term for small retailers) come to crowd the stalls. She sells roasted pork by the roadside to help meet her family’s nutrition needs. Her small business that has been steadily growing, now hangs on a balance because frequent lockdowns in the North West and South West regions including Bamenda where she is, are increasing the uncertainty of doing business there. Fighting broke out between government forces and non-state armed groups in 2016. Since then, regular ghost towns on Mondays and intermittent lockdowns have not only hampered humanitarian access but businesses as well. Brendaline started her business in 2019 with WFP support. She had just fled violence in Bafut, her home village, 25KM from the main North West town of Bamenda. With no father in sight for her four children, she had to sustain an entire family of over eight people who had fled Bafut with her. When she just arrived Bamenda, feeding and shelter were a major challenge. There were days when they couldn’t even afford a meal and would have to spread relatives among other family members in town to find sleeping space. Eventually she was enrolled into WFP’s food assistance programme and she began receiving cash to buy food to sustain the nutritional needs of her family. After receiving her monthly cash assistance, she would hurry to the local markets and buy what food she thought had the necessary nutritional value and was equally affordable for her family. If there were any leftovers, she would buy a few kilograms of pork from the butchers and sell in the evenings under a small stall close to where she lived. “The butchers were always kind to me” Brendaline explained. “I would pay for a kilogram of pork, but they would also give me the offals and other internal parts not readily demanded in the market” she continued. “We would eat the offals and roast the regular kilogram to sell. For every kilogram that costs about 2,500 FCFA ($5), I’d probably make about 600 FCFA ($1) as profit,” Brendaline explained in broken English. Over the span of nearly two years, she has steadily grown her business to the point where she is now able to buy a full pig. She has enrolled two of her kids into school and even on very bad days, “we are sure of at least one major meal to keep us going,” she says. “My hope is to one day grow the pigs myself, so I can increase my profit margins and not have to depend on anyone for support,” she said. For Brendaline, the burden of succeeding in her business weighs heavily on her, especially when she remembers that there are eight people living with her who depend almost entirely on the assistance she receives and the profits she is able to make from the business. It is a feeling Theodore Chiatu is equally familiar with and a burden he has carried for a while. Theodore used to be a teacher, but the crisis and lockdowns took a serious toll on schools and teachers. Some teachers were even targeted. Fearing for his life, and with no income from teaching, Theodore was forced to consider other possibilities to make ends meet. The situation became even dire for him when nine of his relatives fled the fighting in the village to join him in Bamenda. “Things were tough while I was alone, but when the rest of my family joined me, it escalated to a whole new level,” he said. Within a month, he moved from being sure of his daily meals to living in perpetual worry of whether the nine people under his roof will even have one meal a day. Somedays, they were lucky and could manage a meal. Other days, they would just sit around waiting for help that may never come. Since even hoping for three meals a day seemed like such a luxury, they resorted to skipping meals. The option to skip meals was a hard one to consider. There were children and elderly people living in Theodore’s house and under his care. Their eating habits and schedules are very particular. “As a man, I can easily skip meals, but how do you tell a nursing mother to skip a meal while her baby is screaming for breastmilk” Theodore asked. He figured his best bet was to start a small business. So, he too began taking small portions of the cash assistance he received from WFP to buy birds for a poultry farm. Before long, he was making sales and the nutrition situation of his household began to improve. But Theodore’s poultry farm, just like Brendaline’s roadside business, are now threatened by frequent lockdowns like the 15-day lockdown called by non-state armed groups between September 16 and October 3, barely one week into the start of the 2021/2022 academic year.    All economic activity was halted. Transport services, provision shops and markets were all shutdown during that period. Even humanitarian organisations were forced to halt their field operations during this period. Theodore lost many of his young birds because he was unable to buy feed in time and Brendaline did not even bother opening her shop on lockdown days. “Many fowls have died. And because this business is very seasonal when you miss a market day (because of lockdown) costs could dramatically increase,” Theodore said Many of the beneficiaries to WFP’s cash assistance programme have been able to engage in small businesses. “I am very grateful for the help WFP provides especially because I do not have to depend on anyone to meet my nutrition needs… but if these lockdowns persist, then we’ll continue to depend on WFP” Brendaline said. Her ultimate desire is for “the crisis to end, so we can reap the fruits of our labour.” “This is obviously one of the up-sides to WFP’s cash transfer programme”, said Taban Lokonga, deputy emergency coordinator for the North West / South Crisis considered as a level 2 emergency. “It empowers families with the freedom to make their own food choices, giving more dignity, while building local markets. But for me, a major advantage in times like these, is that it allows beneficiaries the flexibility to plan in a volatile environment,” he said. WFP’s food and cash assistance in the North West and South West regions is supported by the generous donations of Canada, European Union, Japan, Korea, the United Kingdom and the United States of America.

  In the face of climate change, civil unrest, instability, uncontrolled development, poaching, and the COVID-19 pandemic, the Central Africa region still holds some of the World's most valuable natural and cultural heritage. It is under this context that the UNESCO Regional Office for Central Africa hosted the celebration of the African World Heritage Day on May 05, presided over by the Minister of Arts and Culture (MINAC) and in close collaboration with the African World Heritage Fund (AWHF), School of African Heritage (EPA) and their partners, welcome the cooperation framework between UNESCO and countries of the subregion in efforts to protect our common heritage.  During the ceremony in Yaounde, H.E. Bidoum Pkatt (MINAC) affirmed that “The protection of cultural and natural heritage is not only reflected in the ratification of the 1972 convention but also goes beyond it. The inclusion of two natural sites, including a cross-border site; the Lobeke National Park of the Cameroonian part of the Sangha Tri-National on the prestigious World Heritage List, reflects the regional and intra-African determination that we have to protect and preserve this natural heritage. The Executive Director of the African World Heritage Fund (AWHF), Mr. Souayibou Varissou on his part reiterated, “Our continent is blessed with an incredible richness and diversity of both natural and cultural heritage that must be known, recognized, promoted, and preserved for present and future generations. However, with only 12% of the 1154 World Heritage Sites and more than 40% of the 52 sites in Danger, Africa, and World Heritage organizations need to work even harder to improve the profile of the continent on the World Heritage List.” World Heritage Sites are cultural and or natural sites considered to be of ‘Outstanding Universal Value’, which have been inscribed on the World Heritage List. They are sites with irreplaceable features and can be preserved for the betterment of mankind through tourism, skills acquisition, reconciliation, science, and education.  Other events to reinforce capacities, highlight the resilience, opportunities, and achievements of 50 years of implementation of the 1972 Convention in Central Africa were organized.  “Reinforcing capacities of Communities for better conservation of World Heritage” The 2022 theme celebrates the efforts of local communities/people and urges for continued community participation in the management and conservation of World Heritage Sites. From Yaounde, the MINAC went further to Kribi, South of Cameroon to officially launch the 8th Francophone Regional Training on the preparation of nominations to the World Heritage List. A total of 16 participants from 8 countries (Benin, Burundi Cameroon, Chad, Congo Brazzaville, Ivory Coast, Senegal, and Tunisia) participated in this edition, from 5 to 17 May 2022.   According to Mr. Dodé Houehounha, Head of Culture Sector for UNESCO “The objective is to improve the implementation of the World Heritage Convention in Africa by developing the skills of heritage practitioners and raising awareness of stakeholders in the field of cultural and natural heritage.” This training will build the capacity of cultural and natural heritage professionals including young people in Africa on the elaboration of quality nomination files and the improvement of protection and conservation of World Heritage. It is expected that from this training program and within two years (June 2022-May 2024), eight nomination proposals from the African continent should be completed and submitted to the World Heritage Centre for review.    

On 7 April 2022, CARO, upon request by the Cameroon National Assembly, presented the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance (the Charter) to over 30 members of the Constitutional Laws and Human Rights Commission of the Cameroon National Assembly (the Commission). The objective of the presentation was to build the capacity of the MPs to understand the Charter and ensure its implementation. It emphasised the importance of the Charter as an instrument for development if efficiently and effectively implemented by states. Ensuing discussions focused on the challenges encountered in the Charter’s implementation, the persistence of coup d’états on the African continent despite its ratification, indicators of good governance  and on how best members of the Commission can ensure that all stakeholders respect and implement the charter. Participants made a commitment to follow-up on the periodic review submitted by the State to the AU Commission on Democracy and Elections and to request the Government to present to the Constitutional Commission, the last five submitted periodic reports. They also suggested the possibility of drafting proposals to review the Charter so as to redefine democracy from an African perspective, among other aspects.  At the end, they expressed a need for more sensitisation and capacity building workshops for members of the Constitutional and Human Rights Commission especially in relation to following up and evaluating the implementation of the code on territorial decentralisation and transfer of competences, as well as on monitoring the detention conditions of prisoners.  They also recommended continuous collaboration between the National Assembly and CARO. It should be noted that Cameroon ratified the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance in 2012 alongside four other countries in Central Africa, including: Rwanda (2010), Chad (2011), Sao Tomé and Principe (2019) and the Central African Republic (2019).