Yaoundé, Cameroon, 23 November 2021 - UN-Habitat and the Government of Cameroon recently held a training for the Cameroon UN Country Team aimed at strengthening the capacities of the members on the method of reviewing policies on urban-rural linkages.

 This training is part of the project “Leaving No Place behind: Strengthening Urban-Rural Linkages in Africa” in Cameroon. The project is the result of the cooperation agreement signed in 2009 between Cameroon, represented by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development (MINHDU) and UN-Habitat.

Under this agreement, UN-Habitat provides technical support such as monitoring, advice, and capacity building to the Country Team that implements the activities planned under the project.

The participants also reviewed the results of the project at mid-term and participants examined the analysis report of the collected data in order to finalize the project in December 2021.

Chaired by Josiane Kamgaing, Head of the Urban Data and Housing Unit at MINHDU, the training session was attended by several other ministerial institutions, namely the Ministry of Economy, Planning and Land Management (MINEPAT) the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MINADER), the Ministry of Decentralization and Local Development (MINDDEVEL), the National Institute of Statistics (INS) and representatives of UN-Habitat.

Most of the participants expressed their satisfaction with the policy review tools and strategy presented to them and said they were excited to begin the new phase of the project and to further interpret the results of the data collection in order to strengthen rural-urban linkages in Cameroon.

“We now have a clear vision of the policy review methodology, and the clarifications provided by the UN-Habitat team will allow us to better identify the gaps between the urban and rural areas of the target zone. We will then be able to propose measures to strengthen urban-rural linkages that integrate local and regional actions through an update of the policies and strategies involved,” said.

The country team also committed to contributing to the regional workshop on urban-rural linkages that will be held in December 2021 and will bring together the four countries of Guinea Conakry, Nigeria (Niger State) and Tanzania (Zanzibar). This capacity building session ended with perspectives on the continuation of the project, including the dissemination of the results to local authorities and the Prime Minister.