Hot off the press: a poster on resource revenue transparency

by Valery Nodem, RELUFA Coordinator

The government of Cameroon joined in 2005 the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). This international initiative seeks the regular publication of volumes and revenues generated through the exploitation of a country's natural resources such as oil, gas, and minerals with the intention to give its citizens a tool to check and see whether the funds are effectively used to reduce the often high poverty levels in resource rich but poor countries.

Ever since Cameroon's adhesion to the EITI, very little information has circulated about this important initiative. Besides a very limited circle of ministers, companies, and members of civil society who have been following the developments surrounding this initiative, the general public has had no access to information about the fact that the initiative even exists, let alone about its potential and its purpose.

The Network for the Fight Against Hunger (RELUFA) and the National Service for Justice and Peace (SNJP) of the Catholic Church have wanted to bridge this information gap through a simplified production of a poster that is geared towards the general public, whether they live in urban or rural areas. The purpose of the poster is to have informed citizens, whol will that way be better able to engage with their political leaders on questions associated with the management of the State's  resources and their ultimate usage towards poverty reduction.

Download the English version of the poster in original format

Télécharger la version française du poster en format original

CAP for Scholars in the Far North of Cameroon

by Elias Gondji,

Coordinator network member organization, ADERSA,

Coordinator RELUFA Food Sovereignty and CAP for Scholars Programs in the Far North Region

Alongside its Food Sovereignty program in the Far North Province of Cameroon, RELUFA has successfully introduced a new initiative for small educational loans in the participating grain bank communities.

Launched at the start of the 2007/2008 school year as a special branch of the Credit Against Poverty program (CAP), the goal of CAP for Scholars is to offer financial support to parents who are having difficulties to enroll their children in school, particularly at the beginning of a new school year.

Lack of food, lack of resources

At the Kindergarten, elementary and secondary levels, the Cameroonian school year starts in September. But that is exactly the time that the population in the Far North region of Cameroon is having enormous financial difficulties particularly because of widespread food shortages. This obliges the parents to spend their last resources to buy the staple simply for their families to survive. They enter the month of September with little or no financial means. For many families, that goes at the expense of the children’s schooling.

Educational loans: Commercial banks and usurers

Commercial banks in urban areas often promote so-called “educational loans” in the period leading up to the start of the new school year, but they target parents with regular monthly income to ensure the loan repayment. It allows these families to enroll their children without any difficulty as soon as the schools open their doors.

This stands in stark contrast with the situation for parents in rural areas, who usually do not have any regular monthly income. As subsistent farmers they rely on their meager annual revenues to enroll their children, trying to cope with the fact that in the North of Cameroon the only cash crop is cotton. Unfortunately the demand and the price for this product has continually been decreasing due to the distorted competition they face from cotton growing businesses in the US that receive large sums of agricultural subsidies from their government.

Often parents rely on their live stock as in kind savings to ensure their children’s schooling. But many still have to turn to usurers or shady businessmen who lend them money that has to be paid back in the form of millet at their next harvest during the months of November and December, when the grain market prices are low. But the quantity of grains they need to repay are based on the rates from the lean season, when the grains usually cost at least twice as much as during harvest time. Worse, added to this amount is the interest on the loan, which at times can be as much as 40% of the price of the bag.

Low education rates and girls' education

Because of the two practices described above, parents generally decide to not send all of their children go to school, and most often it are the girls who are left behind in favor of the boys’ education. In the end, the poor villagers find themselves trapped in a situation where they are never able to build up savings because of the loan reimbursements due to the usurers against their exorbitant interest rates. At the same time already low education rates are getting even worse given the fact that in this part of the country the birth rate is very high.

CAP for Scholars pilot initiative

Hence this idea of starting a micro-credit program for educational loans and tying it in a unified way to the main economic activity of the region, which is cotton production. The set up has been saluted by the parents as it gives them access to financial means at a low interest rate at the opening of the school year while the loan repayments are assured at the time of the cotton payments, when all parents do have access to money.

To try out this new approach the first sensitization sessions were held in de community of Zidim, where the CAP worker discussed with interested parents the possibility of loan repayments through their annual cotton sales.

These take usually place between February and May, i.e. about seven months after the beginning of the school year. This method seemed feasible since cotton production is the only organized sector in which the farmer is able to have a little income after the sale of their cotton.

Payment to a farmer is done in one lump sum, and in each village at the same time for all cotton producers. This helps to retrieve the loans during a given period that is well known to all farmers, as well as to the CAP worker and the accompanying member organization.

Cost calculations and repayment feasibility

To discourage parents from taking unrealistic loans that are difficult to pay back, the field worker sat down with the parents during the training session and drew up with them a list of all the minimum requirements and expenses needed to ensure the enrollment of a student. The parents then looked for other financial means to support their children’s studies for the rest of the school year.

Once established, this list of minimum expenses presented and explained during a meeting that bring together all parents of students who seek an educational loan. The loan requests are then submitted to RELUFA’s staff person for Credit Against Poverty for his approval.

One hundred percent repayment

To the satisfaction of all, this approach has allowed the CAP for Scholars program to succeed with a 100% repayment rate after two cycles since it became operational.

This is how in the first pilot year of the initiative in the village of Zidim, 16 parents have benefitted from a CAP for Scholars loan, which allowed to enroll and educate 16 students at the local secondary school and it has facilitated the enrollment of 43 primary school students.

In the second year the operation has expanded to also include families in the village of Gagala where parents had shown their eagerness to also participate in the program.

Entering the loan third cycle, the initiative has caught the eye of other villages and mushroomed with now 131 families in the nine villages of Zidim, Kidé, Mayel-Taba, Gouzlom, Boudoum, Mowo, Goulwa, Mandaya and Gagala participating during the 2009-2010 school year. Together, they having taken out a total of 4 495 000 CFA (i.e. $10,000 ) in educational loans for a total of 279 children to go to school..

Fair Fruit: Get ready for your Holiday Sales and Gift Exchanges

In September RELUFA succesfully shipped another consignment of its Fair Fruit to Partners for Just Trade (PJT). The dried mango, pineapple, papaya, banana and our popular fruit mix passed again with flying colors the USDA inspection at the port of entry. This means that the stocks at PJT are replenished and the fruits available again for purchase online.

PJT Partnership Boxes

If your church organizes this year a Christmas sale or otherwise alternative gift exchange, consider ordering a partnership box from PJT and include our fruit in your assortment. Against discount prices you can pick and choose your own variety of Cameroonian fruit and Peruvian artisan products.

You could also host partnership sales of Fair Trade products at your home. Even then, the PJT partnership box is the way to go!

PJT Store Partners

Do you know of any Fair Trade-, Health- or Natural Food store that might be interested in selling this wholesome snack, please refer them to PJT's for wholesale arrangements and encourage them to become a PJT Store Partner.

Fair Fruit Producers

Our dried fruit derives from the rich, volcanic soil of Western Cameroon. The fertile grounds of this region have become a blessing and a curse for local farmers. They are under constant threat of land grab by a multinational fruit company that engulfs their community.

Fair Fruit producers are planters who lost this way their livelihood. After the agro-business had seized their fields, some of them subsist on a small remainder of land, unable to resolve their debts. Others have re-invested in new plots but face inflated leases. Evicted twice, one farmer decided altogether to move away far from the business’ vicinity to not risk removal again.

Our Fair Fruit dryers of GIC Espérance are mostly young people who at times slave away as day laborers in the company’s plantations. The farmers and dryers agree together on their fair share in the production of this healthy snack.