Progress with empty plates: Rural women paying heavy price for Cameroon’s mega dev’t projects.

“I used to farm near these riverbanks. But now, the land is gone, and the water smell like oil,” 55-year-old resident, Mama Bella, recalls nostalgically, her feet buried in the damp earth. 

Bella is paying the price for the construction of the Nachtigal hydroelectric power plant, a 420 MW facility on the Sanaga River near the capital city of Yaounde. 

The facility is designed to provide about 30% of the country's electricity needs with clean and inexpensive power. 

From the outset, the plant, a public-private partnership financed to the tune of 786 billion FCFA (approximately €1.2 billion) and developed by Nachtigal Hydro Power Company, was expected to reduce the cost of electricity generation by decreasing fuel purchases and imports, which could save the country millions of dollars annually. 

It was also intended to stimulate economic growth and improve quality of life through job creation and development projects in local communities. But this remains a far-fetched dream. 

From dams and plantations to conservation zones, they are hailed as engines of progress. Yet, beneath the rhetoric of modernity, women in these communities are enduring invisible costs: loss of farmland, polluted rivers, food insecurity, and increased household burdens.

Bella, a mother of five, currently lives in a two-room cramped mud house with her immediate and extended family, with farming being the lone source of livelihood. 

“Women have never been consulted during the different meetings held since the construction of the dam started,” she says. “The meetings have since multiplied, yet nothing concrete has been said about our plight”.

Her 63-year-old husband, Mbia, who attended most of the consultation meetings, prior to, and after the creation of the dam, is no less disappointed. 

“I once had vast plots of land that brought good returns from cocoa farming and could take care of my family’s needs,” Mbia says. “But when the dam was built, deforestation and fires destroyed my farmland. Now, I am left with just a few small portions behind my house.”

Their 19-year-old niece, Okie Ongeune Marie Leticia, who lives with them, is mother of six-month-old Eunice, fruit of a relationship between her and a NHPC worker who has deliberately been absent from the child’s life since he got the news of conception. Okie confirms that farm work has become increasingly difficult over the past decade. 

“Things have hardly changed. When I was younger, we could start farming at 6 a.m. and return by 1 p.m. with plenty of food. Today, we can barely stay on the farm past 10 a.m. because the trees that once provided shade have been cut down. We are now exposed to extreme heat and direct sunlight, making it impossible to work for long hours,” she says. 

Another resident, a mother of two in her late fifties, Ngono Abe Philomene, says Cameroon's largest energy project has wiped out the villagers’ future. 

“When the project came, we expected employment opportunities,” Ngono, a farmer, said. “We thought the locals would be recruited so families could survive. But instead, the company brought its own workers and we were excluded”. 

Ngono further reveals that the company in charge of building the dam has failed to adequately compensate the locals. 

“When they visit our farmland, they would ask us to cede 10 meters square but would end up taking twice the surface,” she adds. 

Booming life before project & economic hardship it brings 

Life before the advent of the project, Ngono recalls, was easy-going, with some residents making as much as 200,000 FCFA a daily from sand mining. But this is no longer possible. 

“When people have nothing to eat, they start stealing. That is how insecurity has grown here. We now live in misery,” she said. 

A former sand miner, Nkodo Abdon Desiré, agrees, and fears for what the future holds for the locals. “When I started this activity in 1982,” recalls Nkodo, adding that: “It was promising.” 

But over time, he explains it became a well-structured local economy: divers bought the sand, the workers unloaded it, and women sold food to support them. It was a huge economic activity. But all of these disappeared with the advent of the Nachtigal hydroelectric dam.

“Many of us have lost our income,” Nkodo says. “We were told repeatedly that we would be compensated for the loss of our livelihoods. When the compensation finally came, it was far below what had been documented. Sand miners were each entitled to receive CFA 36 million as per the original terms of reference. But this wasn't the case. I only received CFA 3.6 million.” 

Short-term hardship & long-term economic benefits 

But traditional authorities in Batchenga insist that the dam did not bring only short-term hardship but also long-term economic benefits. 

They point to a new road network built in the locality thanks to the project which has gone a long way in improving mobility, facilitating trade, and opening up the area to new economic opportunities. 

The project, they add, has improved access to markets, better transportation services, increased commercial activity, and greater connectivity to social services.

NHPC, one too many 

Development projects of this magnitude across the country spread across many localities with almost the same Modus Operandi and complaints galore from host communities.

A few kilometres from Batchenga, we get to Mbanjock in the Upper Sanaga Division. Here, we find the Cameroon Sugar Company, SOSUCAM. 

It is the main sugar-cane and sugar producer in Cameroon, with large plantations around Nkoteng and Mbandjock in the Centre Region. 

Since 1964, the company has cultivated on tens of thousands of hectares, historically large land-holdings and runs a sugar factory + refinery + sugar-processing infrastructure. 

According to investigations from Mongaby, and human-rights reporting, SOSUCAM has been linked to “labour abuse and work accidents” on its plantations.

In 2020, the industrial agriculture sector including SOSUCAM, accounted for 26.4 % of all work-related accidents in Cameroon. 

Local NGOs also accuse SOSUCAM of polluting rivers and soils, destroying village plantations, and violating labour, social security and environmental-protection, yet the cry of communities receive little or no attention.  

Another prominent name is SOCAPALM, the oil-palm plantations in Littoral, Centre, South Regions, notably around Édéa, Apouh, Dibombari, Mbandjock, Nkoteng, Mbongo, Mbambou, Esseka. 

According to the information from the Guardian Post archives, Communities report that these companies have effectively monopolised ancestral land, denying villagers access to fields for subsistence farming or family agriculture. 

The most recent of such projects the Kikot Hydroelectric Power Station still in development. It is projected around 500 MW, with an expected commissioning in 2030.

Finding hope in despair

In the face of the socioeconomic disruptions, women are showing an uncommon act of residence, partly thanks to the support of civil society organisations focused on environmental protection and climate change mitigation such as Green Development Advocates, GDA, and Women Action for Change, WOAC.

“The NGO’s have trained us to make organic fertilisers,” says Bella. “This helps strengthen the soil, but it is not enough. It takes a year to see results. Cassava matured in eight months.” 

Ntube Ngolle Eunice, Project Coordinator of WOAC, says thanks to her organisation, women are now actively building strong networks for mutual support, raising awareness, and promoting sustainable solutions to their plight.

“We strengthen resilience by organizing workshops on leadership, transformative industries, female entrepreneurship, and promoting sustainable agricultural practices and agroecology,” she says. 

She said WOAC is determined to create a larger social network for mutual support where they can develop safe spaces for promoting innovative and sustainable solutions. 

This, she hopes, will strengthen resilience, influence policies, hold project developers accountable, and ensure women’s voices are not silenced. 

“We have also facilitated the mediation process between the women and the officials of Nachtigal Hydropower Company,” she says. 

Community members continue to demand concrete action on promises made by officials of the Nachtigal Hydropower Project more than a year ago. 

A 15-woman committee headed by Clarice submitted several formal letters requesting essential amenities. Clarice says the company destroyed a sacred site.

In a rare scenario, Clarice says the company recently launched an educational support programme offering scholarships to students in the area. 

Beneficiaries were entitled to a 150,000 FCFA reward, including 50,000 FCFA for books and 100,000 FCFA in cash. 

Other beneficiaries received 200,000 FCFA, a laptop, and a monthly stipend of 50,000 FCFA for nine months. The scholarship programme is expected to run for ten years, targeting youth from affected localities.

“NHPC has promised us that the posing of a foundation is expected in the days ahead to compensate for Scared site they destroyed in Nji, we impatiently await that,” she declares further. 

The Cameroon government has been partnering with nonprofit organisations to assist women whose economic activities have been destroyed by large-scale infrastructure and agro-industrial projects like the Nachtigal dam. 

The Ministry of Women's Empowerment and the Family has been leading community outreach programmes, skills-training workshops, and women’s rights advocacy to help affected women to rebuild resilience and get access to income-generating opportunities. 

That of Agriculture and Rural Development is supporting women farmers displaced by plantations with agricultural extension services, improved seeds, and training in climate-smart farming. 

The Ministry of Social Affairs, for its part, offers psychosocial support, livelihood programmes, and protection services for vulnerable families whose social fabric has been disrupted by land acquisition and environmental change. 

While that of the Environment, Nature Protection and Sustainable Development, also contributes by enforcing environmental safeguards and supporting community adaptation projects in areas impacted by deforestation, pollution, and changing water sources.

The story of Batchenga is not an isolated tale of rural hardship but a mirror held up to the development model shaping many communities across Cameroon. 

From Nachtigal to SOSUCAM, SOCAPALM and the emerging Kikot project, the pattern remains disturbingly consistent: large-scale investments celebrated as national milestones often translate into dispossession, economic decline, and social fractures for the very populations meant to benefit. 

Women, already the backbone of rural livelihoods, absorb the greatest shock, losing land, labour opportunities, safety, and dignity.

The findings are clear indication of the urgent need for stronger accountability, stricter enforcement of environmental and social safeguards, transparent compensation processes, and a genuine seat at the table for affected communities, especially women. It also sends a clear message that development cannot continue to advance at the expense of those it claims to uplift.