South West North West Women’s Task Force: New leadership vows to rebrand, advocate peace, protection of women, girls.

The pledge was made Saturday February 8 in Buea during a meeting to install the new executive members of the coalition, led by Clotilda Andiensa, as new General Coordinator.

In her address, the General Coordinator of SNWOT, Clotilda Andiensa, said it was the start of a new page for the coalition, expressing appreciation for her election and a readiness to serve. 

“We will rebrand SNWOT so that more partners will want to collaborate and work with us through strategic partnerships at both the national and international levels. We know that everyone in Cameroon now needs peace and we believe that as women if we stand up and receive the needed support, we will achieve this goal,” she said.

“I am very elated to have been elected. I am taking over this position with a lot of conviction, because I have passion and I am confident of the team I will work with because of their expertise and commitment to the work of women's peace and security,” Andiensa added.

She said her vision was to ensure that SNWOT could contribute significantly to reducing the pain and suffering of women in the two regions. 

“I have a vision for a South West and North West region where the untold suffering that women and girls have been going through for the past eight years is significantly reduced to an extent where they can regain the lives they were living before this crisis started,” she stated.

She promised to put the women’s peace manual recently launched by SNWOT into use. 

“…we are going to design an implementation plan that we will use to disseminate this manual, because we want to drill women from the grassroots level on how to use the manual,” Andiensa added.

To move the coalition to the next level, she said the team would design a strategic plan to follow in the next two years to ensure they can bring meaningful peace to the regions. 

“This plan will cover everything we want to accomplish every month to bring back peace,” she added.

On her part, the Chair of the Ad-hoc Committee to restructure SNWOT, Prof Anjoh Rose, said she was satisfied with the job done by her team to review and strengthen the governance documents of SNWOT to address the crisis in Cameroon with women fully involved.

Prof Anjoh reminded the leaders to be accountable to the general assembly of SNWOT. To ensure they achieve the goal of serving the coalition, she called for teamwork and the need to use the governance documents of SNWOT as their working tools guiding all their decisions and actions.

“…Everyone is anxious to see the new SNWOT manifest itself. Know your mandate is the Rebirth SNWOT where expectations are higher than we may think,” she said. 

New leadership team 

The new leadership team includes members of the Board of Directors, the general coordination team, regional coordination teams and the Advisory Board. Clotilda Andiensa Waah is the General Coordinator, with Dr Eileen Tabuwe Akwo, as the North West Regional Coordinator and Arrah Nkongho as South West Regional Coordinator.

The members of the Board of Directors are Omam Esther Njomo (Vision-Bearer), Dr Agbor Mardaline, Beatrice Ndefon, Madam Chambi Julie and Bolima Nancy. 

The restructuring, it was said, was motivated by the need for the coalition to adapt and address emerging challenges and maximise collective impact through innovative and impactful narratives and contributions in this peacebuilding spectrum in Cameroon. 

According to SNWOT, the will enhance organisational effectiveness, streamline structures and processes like administrative procedures and manuals, and conflicts of interest documentation) improve efficiency and resource allocation while strengthening collaboration and partnerships with member organisations, government entities, international partners, and other stakeholders.

The restructuring process involved a comprehensive assessment of the coalition's current structure, programmes, and operational modalities and putting the new structure and strategic plan into action, including capacity building and resource mobilisation efforts. The General Assembly of SNWOT in Bamenda validated all the changes on January 4 and 5, 2025. 

Arrah Bertha Nkongho, the Regional Coordinator of SNWOT in the South West, said SNWOT has witnessed a rebirth, promising to champion the mobilisation of women so that the grassroots women are involved in the business of peacebuilding.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post issue No:3363 of Wednesday February 12, 2025