Youth Entrepreneurship : Contribution Of Diaspora

The Head of State, President Paul Biya in his message to the youths on the occasion of the 56th edition of the Youth Day, Thursday, February 10, 2022 acknowledged the increasingly visible participation of diasporic youth in nation building. 
In order to facilitate their return and investment back at home, he said, “Government has put in place an incentive framework for their entrepreneurial initiatives through the Support Programme for the Return and Integration of Diasporic Youth.” President Biya further promised that in the course of the year 2022, “Government intends to further support the call for projects initiative launched to enable diasporic youth to participate in the development of our country.”  The programme, he clarified, is expected in the long term, to encourage such youth, who so desire, to return and invest in Cameroon  and sustainably form part of the national economic fabric.
Before the Head of State’s detailing of measures to facilitate the return and participation of diasporic youth in nation building with entrepreneurship as one of the key pillars, government had earlier taken other measures. At the Ministry of External Relations, there is a Department in charge of Cameroonians Abroad that serves as link between government and its citizens in the diaspora. Informed sources in MINREX indicate that government has granted some customs facilities to members of the Diaspora who intended to invest back home. Other facilities are in the domain of National Preference in International Consultations and the Ministry of State Property, Survey and Land Tenure instructed to give out a percentage of private State land to Cameroonians from the diaspora for investment. At the level of Parliament, the Decentralised and Cross-border Diaspora Cooperation Parliamentary Network (REP-COD) has put at the disposal of Cameroonians in the diaspora information concerning the creation of enterprises in 72 hours, customs procedures for imported materials and how to acqu...