Cameroon/World Bank: FCFA 26.6 Billion For Alleviating Poverty

Some 42,000 families and 30 organisations will benefit from the scheme that started in 2013.

It is no news that thousands of families in Cameroon live beyond the poverty line. To assist them to raise their standards of living, Cameroon, in collaboration with the World Bank, has put in place a poverty alleviation scheme dubbed Safety Net Project.

The project, which targets families living in abject poverty, started in 2013. Some 2,000 families from the interior parts of the Far North and North West Regions were selected. The two-year project, which ended this year, offered beneficiaries 20,000 FCFA every two months, after they received 80,000 FCFA to set up income- generating activities. The success of the project caught World Bank’s attention, which stepped in to assist 40,000 more families to get out of poverty by financing the micro-activities of 30,000 organisations.

With 1.2 billion FCFA from government and 25 billion FCFA from the World Bank, 42,000 families will set up income-generating activities to take care of educational, health and family upkeep needs. During the evaluation meeting in Douala on August 29, 2016, the Project Coordinator, Njoh Michelin, disclosed that all 2,000 families earmarked for the pilot phase financed ...