PULCCA donates IT equipment, materials to agriculture, livestock ministries.

The consignment was handed over during a ceremony in Yaounde, Friday April 12.

The IT equipment are aimed at easing data collection, procession and dissemination of useful information to help fight food insecurity.    

The IT equipment are part of a loan, secured by government, from the International Development Association, IDA, to finance the PULCCA project. 

The consignment includes 14 desktop computers, 19 laptops, 5 notebook laptops, 16 multifunction printers, 5 multifunction photocopiers, 13 inverters, 14 protective surges, 30 external hard drives, 4 video projectors, 50 USB keys and 4 GPS receivers. 

Speaking while chairing the ceremony, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Gabriel Mbairobe; expressed government’s gratitude and all other actors of the food supply chain, to the World Bank and partners. 

He explained that tackling the threat of food insecurity is part of government’s priority. 

“The Head of State had said as long as a Cameroonian has not eaten to his or her satisfaction, our mission will not have been accomplished. That is to show the importance of monitoring food security in our country,” the government official said. 

Receiving the IT equipment, the minister noted that it will enable them to take a step further in the digitalisation process of agriculture in Cameroon. 

“We often talk of artificial intelligence, which is an important element for policy making and especially in terms of anticipation…today, good governance obliges us all to anticipate food crises in order to take adequate decisions,” he added.

He affirmed that the computers, photocopiers and others item received, will enable the structures make information available, especially in real time, to ensure actions taken have an impact on curbing food crisis. 

“To those benefitting from these equipment, I want to tell them that this should help them, not only in the collection of data and treatment, but especially in making available information to the public, policy makers and funders, who will want to know exactly what the situation is; to estimate the means to be made available to eradicate the negative impact of food crisis,” Mbairobe said. 

Enter PULCCA Coordinator

According to PULCCA Coordinator, Dr Gilbert Ndzomo Abanda, the computer equipment and materials, worth 150 million FCFA, will strengthen the capacity of both ministries, through the technical structures and other government bodies to design, operate, process and store data.

“In Cameroon, some 3,000,000 people are living in a situation of food insecurity… 245,000 of them are in need of food assistance,” Dr Ndzomo explained.

He added that: “The equipment we have just donated will be used, specifically, for conducting surveys, processing and analysing the data collected, producing and reproducing working documents, archiving and disseminating data”.

It is worth noting that the PULCCA project, set up by the State and her financial and technical partners, is aimed at providing an urgent response to mitigate the short-term impact of food and nutritional insecurity, as well as its medium-term factors. 

Through this, it is hoped that the economic, climatic and community resilience of the Far North, North, Adamawa, North West, South West and East Regions, will be strengthened.

One of the four components of the PULCCA project dwells on support to strengthen government’s capacity to monitor food security crises, information systems and agro-meteorological services. 

In particular, the project plans to distribute agricultural inputs to farmers, build infrastructure for storing, market agricultural produce and set up social protection programmes.