Centre Region: UNDP offers material assistance to over 512 women in Okola.

The materials, which include among others, sowing machines and grinding machines, were handed to the beneficiaries by the Acting Resident Representative of the UNDP in Cameroon, Alassane Ba. This was during a special ceremony held in Okola yesterday, organised by the UNDP, in partnership with state ministries and women empowerment groups.

The women, selected mainly from the Okola Sub-Division and other parts of the Centre Region, received the material assistance at the end of a 90-day training programme initiated and financed by the UNDP, in partnership with the women’s empowerment group, the Women’s Entrepreneurship Facilitation Network, WEFN, and several government ministries.

Speaking during the ceremony, UNDP Resident Representative, Alassane Ba, said the assistance is aimed at empowering the beneficiary group and estimated general population of over 5,000 other persons directly and indirectly linked to the beneficiary groups. 

Ba said the programme falls in line with UNDP’s contributions in Cameroon’s 2020/2030 National Development Strategy plan the body’s engagement in women and youth empowerment, an area in which the body has empowered 9,000 youth in the last four years.  

“These are the kinds of projects the UNDP has been initiating and executing in Cameroon in the past years. We try to improve the living conditions of women and youth,” Alassane Ba stated. 

“In the last four years, we have been able to create jobs for 9,000 women and youths in the country in diverse domains like vocational training to ensure youths personally start and run programmes, and venture into entrepreneurship,” the UNDP Resident Representative continued. 

“The UNDP will continue working with Cameroon and Cameroonians in the continuation of the implementation of the 2020/2030 National Development Strategy plan by making it in such a way that youths and women continue benefitting from opportunities offered by the institution to facilitate the activities of their livelihoods,” Ba announced. 

Ba, who will next week be leaving Yaounde for Conakry in Guinea, where he will be stationed, expressed gratitude to the people of Cameroon for their support over the past four years of service. 

He described the women’s empowerment project in Okola as one of the most memorable projects that will go down on the books as projects executed by the UNDP under his tenure of office, pledging more of such activities from the UNDP.

Women express gratitude, pledge judicious use of materials 

Speaking during the event yesterday, beneficiaries and WEFN, which facilitated the programme, all expressed gratitude to the UNDP and its partners for the initiative. 

Delphine Mba Shing, a representative of one of the beneficiary women’s groups from Mbandjock in the Upper-Sanaga Division, said the assistance is a life-changing one. According to her, the materials, especially the grinding machines, will help facilitate the transformation of their cassava produce which is the main source of their livelihood.

“We have struggled over the years. It is always very costly when you repeatedly pay to grind your farm produce like cassava which is a very important crop for us. With these machines, that is going to be in the past. Our gratitude to the UNDP and all its partners for the kind gesture,” she stated. 

The representative of the head of the Women Entrepreneurship and Facilitation Network, WEFN, Moun Aminatou, also expressed gratitude to the UNDP and its partner organizations for the support which she termed as timely. 

“Thanks to the UNDP, our women have been able to realise their dreams. These sewing and grinding machines and several other equipment received here will expectedly contribute in bettering the living conditions of the women,” Moun said. 

“We are hoping that the partnership with the UNDP will continue so that we can be able to help orphans and young girls who are going through difficult situations. We want to see a community where women are no longer behind in developmental actions. We want women to be actors of development as preached by the Head of State,” the WEFN official concluded.