This was the exhortation made by the Minister of the Economy, Planning and Regional Development, Alamine Ousmane Mey, to the members of the National Committee for Monitoring and Evaluation of the implementation of the National Development Strategy 2020-2030 (CNSE/SND30), whose third session was held on Tuesday 14 May 2024 in Yaounde. It was attended by a dozen members of government.
The purpose of this session was to present the report on the implementation of NDS30 for the year 2023. The updated strategy for the education and training sector was also presented and adopted.
In his opening speech, the Minister for the Economy, after citing a number of achievements in the various sectors of the NDS30, expressed his overall satisfaction with the progress made. On the social front, notable progress has been made in the area of health, with the implementation of Universal Health Coverage. In terms of access to drinking water and electricity, the percentage of households with access to drinking water has reached 80%, compared with 61% in 2014, while the proportion of households with access to electricity has risen to over 60%. In the transport infrastructure sector, a total of 700 km of roads have been rehabilitated and asphalted by 2023. In terms of governance, significant progress has been made in decentralisation, with more resources transferred to Regional and Local Authorities.
Efforts to manage public finances and improve the business climate have enabled Cameroon’s financial rating to be upgraded to B- with stable outlooks.
However, according to the Minister of the Economy, given the pace of progress and Cameroon’s great ambition to emerge, “we will have to double our efforts”. Halfway through the implementation of the NDS30, “we will have to maintain the structural momentum that has been built up, and make up for the performance gaps caused by the shocks to our economy”, said Alamine Ousmane Mey. Also, for the second half of the implementation of the National Development Strategy, MINEPAT made suggestions and gave guidelines. These include making the electricity sector the main vector for the structural transformation of the Cameroonian economy; speeding up the provision of Cameroon with structuring infrastructure in order to reduce production factor costs and guarantee the competitiveness of the national economy; vigorously supporting industrialisation through accelerated implementation of the NDS30 Initial Impetus Programme (P2I) and deepening the integration of value chains at national level.
This will also entails stepping up Public-Private Partnership operations in the mining and infrastructure sectors; strengthening Cameroon’s resilience and economic sovereignty through the implementation of the Integrated Plan for Agricultural and Fisheries Import Substitution (PIISAH), which aims, among other things, to facilitate the development of private sector actions in the agro-pastoral sector, to contribute to a significant increase in production and to create an environment conducive to the development of agro-pastoral activities. The Minister of the Economy also stressed the need to constantly ensure that the planning and operational implementation of the NDS30 remain consistent, in order to guarantee the best possible results in an effective and efficient manner.
The National Committee for Monitoring and Evaluation of the National Development Strategy 2020-2030 (CNSE/SND30) is the unified framework for monitoring and evaluation of the NDS30 and sectoral strategies, created by Decree No. 2021/1541/PM of 23 March 2021 of the Prime Minister, Head of Government.
