Centre Region: Plan Cameroon, nine councils engage to boost local dev’t.

The organisation will also give the councils the powers to execute projects of their choice in their respective municipalities in line with Plan Cameroon’s guidelines as a humanitarian body that strives for the wellbeing of the underserved especially children. 

The conventions were signed in Mengang, Mefou and Afamba Division of the Centre Region Thursday October 24.

The ceremony brought together the mayors of the nine beneficiary councils and the Divisional Officer, DO, of Mengang, Lombo Sylvie Chantal.

The partnership is expected to enhance the effectiveness and sustainability of Plan Cameroon’s actions in the areas concerned,

Municipalities benefitting from the partnership include Mengang, Awae, Esse and Olanguina Councils in the Mefou and Afamba Division, Okola Council in the Lekie Division, Akonolinga and Endom Councils in the Nyong and Mfoumou, Dzeng Council in the Nyong and So’o and Yaoundé II Council in the Mfoundi Division. 

Officials said the signing of the partnership marks the coming to fusion of Plan International’s newly-introduced Community and Local Development Approach strategy. 

The strategy, according to Plan Cameroon, is a five-year initiative that will see Plan Cameroon transferring resources and powers to communities that are benefitting from its assistance and sponsorship programs.

The project will run from July 2024 to June 30, 2029. It gives the municipalities the leeway to fully take charge of the execution of projects in their areas using the funds from the international body. 

Per Plan Cameroon officials, the project targets a total of 30 councils with focus on impacting lives notably in the fields of education, health, nutrition, water, hygiene and sanitation and the overall areas of bettering the living conditions and protecting children and vulnerable groups.

The institution is expected to inject a sum of about 700 million FCFA in the communities during the first years of the project.

Partnership foundational for Plan Cameroon actions 

Speaking during the signing ceremony, the representative of the Country Director of Plan Cameroon, Ongono Okala, said the partnership is highly strategic and comes after months of consultation between the organisation, the government of Cameroon and the councils concerned.

He said the formalisation of the working relationship between Plan Cameroon and the nine councils not only marks the full introduction of the body’s new five-year strategy but also lays the foundation for the institution’s humanitarian interventions to be more effective and sustainable. 

“Formerly, Plan Cameroon used to mobilize these resources and carry out the project by itself. We carried out an analysis and noticed that the impact was not always well felt in the communities the way we wanted because councils were not really linked to the activity,” Ongono said. 

He added that: “We noticed that in terms of parenting and durability, it was important for us to involve these councils to ensure more engagement and efficiency”. 

He said Plan Cameroon is confident that the new model formalized through the partnership will eradicate all the formerly existing lapses that the body faced and make its interventions far-reaching in beneficiary communities.

He said the impacts will be felt through the elaboration, execution and evaluation of its funded and supported projects.

He said this will particularly place Plan Cameroon in a position of fully working in line with government’s flourishing guideline of fully prioritizing decentralization. 

“The problems targeted are those linked to or affecting children because Plan’s point of focus is the fight for the rights of youths especially young girls,” the official said, expressing gratitude to the Minister of Decentralisation and Local Development for enabling the institution to sign the partnerships.

Mayors hail partnership

In separate interviews after the signing of the convention, mayors of the beneficiary municipalities expressed sincere gratitude to Plan Cameroon for the initiative, which they said will work in the overall wellbeing of their communities. 

The Mayor of Mengang, Ayia Gabriel Bienvenu, said he and his collaborators will do their best “to ensure that this partnership benefits and satisfies the needs of our communities”. 

Ayia said he is hoping to use the scheme to boost the domain of education in Mengang by notably facilitating the establishment of birth certificates for children. 

The Mayor of Akonolinga, Hon Pierre George Akamba Assembe, said his municipality, will use the scheme to address existing challenges faced in the areas such as the provision of potable water, healthcare and address the Information and Communication Technology, ICT sectors. 

“We know Plan cannot fix all these problems because it has a lot of other projects that it is working on. But their support is crucial, remarkable and very appreciable,” the local authority said. 

Plan Cameroon lifechanging institution 

Parents of some of the children who have already been benefitting from support from Plan Cameroon over the years and are looking forward to have access to improved assistance through the new partnership. 

One of the parents, Rosete Ntseu, urged Plan Cameroon which she said has recently supported her children, especially female ones in the areas of education, healthcare and the ICT, to “work more on the training of these girls for their future wellbeing”. 

“Our children have problems, especially the female ones. Sometimes, they feel left behind and with this partnership, we are confident and hoping that Plan International Cameroon will take care of them,” the parent added.

More than 2,611 children have been sponsored in the Centre Region by Plan Cameroon as part of its groundbreaking nationwide interventions since the body began its operation in Cameroon over 28 years ago. 

This story was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3273 of Monday October 28, 2024