Promoting Bilingualism, Living Together : Practice In Regional, Local Councils

Local and Regional Councils that constitute the bedrock of grassroots development and ideal places for the practice of multiculturalism and living together owing to the cosmopolitan nature of most of them, have to be the cradle of the promotion of the practice of Cameroon’s official languages that are English and French.
In order to promote the use of the official languages and to a larger extent living together, government enacted Law No. 2019/019 of 24 December 2019 on the Promotion of Official Languages in Cameroon. Before that, government earlier created the National Commission for the Promotion of Bilingualism and Multiculturalism whose mission is to oversee the use of the two official languages in Cameroon and the promotion of living together and enhancement of the country’s multicultural nature for the purpose of development. Members of the Commission had previously carried out nationwide campaigns to fight against the upsurge of hate speech. They had also carried out inspection missions in some public administrations such as ministries to evaluate the use the of the English and French languages.
This time around, the members of the National Commission for the Promotion of Bilingualism and Multiculturalism are on mission to evaluate and follow up the promotion of bilingualism in local and regional councils.  The choice of Regional and Local Authorities is justified by Section 3 of the Law on official languages which states that, “This law shall apply to all national public institutions and regional and local authorities.”
In their evaluation mission, members and officials of the National Commission for the Promotion of Bilingualism and Multiculturalism have been assessing the implementation of provisions of the law on the official languages. The sections on the use of official languages in public entities spell out the areas where the official languages must be used. This concerns press articles, press kits and all other communication doc...