Society

World Bank disburses 600 million FCFA to assist vulnerable girls in Cameroon.

Symbolic handing over of envelope by Minister

The World Bank has made available FCFA 600 million to support 10,986 vulnerable young girls in disadvantaged and crisis-hit zones with school fees and didactic material for the next academic year.
This was made known during a ceremony chaired by the Minister of Secondary Education, Prof Nalova Lyonga, who symbolically handed over the funds to the project’s Disbursement Link Indicator, DLI 1 focal point, Owono Ekeme Robert.

The project seeks to support the development of secondary education and skills for growth and employment popularly known by its French acronym, PADESCE.

The ceremony to symbolically hand over the funding took place in Yaounde April 29.

The event served as an opportunity for the launch of a programme to train 3,000 newly recruited teachers on their rights and duties as well as the challenges they face in meeting the government’s objective of improving equitable access to secondary education.

As explained by the focal point for DLI1, Owono Ekeme, both projects, to assist vulnerable girls and train teachers seek to improve on the learning environment, by helping secondary schools have a certain administrative, financial and academic standard.

He said the projects lay emphasis on technical and professional education adapted to the job market, with focus on young girls.

“With the help of the World Bank, through PADESCE, we want to help vulnerable young girls. We started this year with 36 secondary schools in four regions; East, Adamawa, North, Far North” Owono Ekeme revealed.

He added that due to time constraints, the criteria for vulnerability could not be established and it was not possible to determine who among the young girls in the chosen schools were vulnerable hence, all the girls in the 36 schools chosen will receive help.

He pointed out that as from next year, they will make sure only the most vulnerable girls receive aid from the project which is set to run for a period of five years.

For her part, Minister Nalova Lyonga while handing over the funds, reminded the DLI1 focal point that the disbursed funds belong to the said vulnerable girls and insisted he ensures that the girls receive the funds.

“Remember that this is a World Bank project for which we have been given money, and we have to show evidence of the fact that we can carry out the project,” the minister emphasised.

PADESCE falls in line with the governments National Development Strategy, NDS30, pillar two, which focuses on the development of human capital.