By David Akana in Rio de Janiero
CameroonPostline.com -- According to new data obtained from the World Bank, Cameroon’s leader, Paul Biya has now borrowed a monster sum of $35 billion in foreign aid in the name of fighting poverty and spurring economic growth in the country.
But as the World Bank notes in its January 21st, 2001 country assistance evaluation report prepared by the Operations Evaluation Department, “poverty increased massively between 1986 and 1993. The outcome of the Bank’s programs for the 1982-94 is rated unsatisfactory and its institutional development impact negligible.”
The World Bank which has loaned substantial amounts of money to the Biya’s regime since 1982 when he came to power acknowledges poverty reduction efforts under its country assistance program (CAS) has been a stack failure both in the education, health and agriculture sectors.
Net official development assistance and official aid received by Biya and his government grew from about $605850000 in 2002 to $648340000 in 2009. Millions of US Dollars flowed from UN agencies to the Biya’s regime in the last several decades such as UNAIDS, UNDP, UNICEF, UNHCR, WFP and WHO with United Nations Development Program aid almost doubling from 2002 to 2010.
The poverty reduction strategy which President Biya praised several times in speeches in the past decade such as during a 2003 conference in Tokyo laid out comprehensive ground work to reduce poverty in Cameroon. The strategy relied heavily on international development assistance for its effective implementation.
Several times in the past decade as in previous decades, World Bank officials flew into Cameroon to jointly evaluate Cameroon’s performance in the implementation of a joint economic program. At the end of every visit to the country, the World Bank representative – sometimes accompanied by the representative of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will go in front of state TV cameras and make ‘positive’ pronouncements about Cameroon’s effort to meet the Bank’s exigencies. What that meant is that each time Cameroon is passed fit – it means more money.
We drilled down World Bank development indicators for Cameroon just as the world conference on Sustainable development opened in Rio de Janeiro. The reason why we did this is because, the international community is likely to make stronger commitments here is Rio about funding sustainable development efforts in developing regions of the world. What this means is that, the life of unborn Cameroonian children are likely to ne mortgaged with more loans without a clear picture of the success of previous loans.
Overall, the World Bank has hundreds of indicators through which it measures development of countries around the world. For practical reasons, we compared just a few of the indicators to see how the country has fared in the past decade. We examined decline and/or increase in areas such as prevalence rate of HIV, mortality rate, access to electricity, teacher/pupil ratio, number of teachers etc. We also looked at other areas that show the improvement in living conditions of a population such as the growth of the number of internet users. For those who may want to read the entire report, we have provided it for you.
HIV/Aids prevalence Rate:
With respect to HIV/Aids prevalence in Cameroon, the World Bank data shows that there is has been a negligible drop in prevalence of HIV in Cameroon during the past ten years. In other words, the prevalence of deadly HIV virus fell from 5.5 percent in 2002 to 5.3 percent in 2009. Keep in mind, the whole of the past decade in Cameroon was dominated with a ‘focused’ anti HIV campaigned championed for long by the man who is now spending time at the Kondengui maximum security prison, Hubert OlanguenaAwono. Money poured into government hands from the World Health Organization, specialized funding agency to fight HIV and several bi-lateral partners of the country. Most of the pioneer government officials entrusted with the fight against the pandemic are in jail today for alleged embezzlement - perhaps a reason why much ground has not been covered in fighting HIV.
Electricity:
World Bank data does not show recent stats – but it indicates less than half of Cameroonian haveaccess to electricity – 48.7 percent to be exact of the total population. Biya’s regime has received substantial sums to implement renewable energies programs in the country especially as talk of new forms of energy became mainstream with the climate change talks in the past decade. It would be interesting to see how many more people get electricity with the completion of the LomPangar dam in the East region.
Life Expectancy and Mortality Rate:
Life expectancy crept up from 49 to 51 years from the start to the end of the past decade. But infant mortality did not improve. First of all, the World Bank documents a lamentable and pathetic one bed per thousand patients in Cameroon and finds out that many more children are still likely to do before they get a chance to celebrate their first anniversary.
Internet Users:
Cameroonians using the internet did not grow much in the last ten years. About 60000 Cameroonians used the internet in 2002 and by 2011 the figure was well under 80000 representing less than a 15 percent increase in ten years. At the same time countries like Tunisia, Morocco, Rwanda and South Africa saw an increase of more 100 percent of people using the internet. Considering the importance of internet connectivity for development and today’s economy – it would seem Cameroon isn’t seizing this great opportunity to spur its growth. Several times in the past decade, President Paul Biya emphasized the important of what he called at the time new information and communication technologies to the nations youths. Money from the UNDP and other aid agencies was used to set up multimedia units in schools across Cameroon and what we know is ten years after – there has been a marginal improvement in the number of people using internet.
Teacher-pupil ratio:
One bright spot in the World Bank report is the fact that literacy rate and the number of teachers recruited to teach in Cameroonian schools has increased. The number of primary school teachers doubled from 2002 to 2010 while the teacher/pupil gap narrowed by about 25 percent in ten years.
CameroonPostline.com -- According to new data obtained from the World Bank, Cameroon’s leader, Paul Biya has now borrowed a monster sum of $35 billion in foreign aid in the name of fighting poverty and spurring economic growth in the country.
But as the World Bank notes in its January 21st, 2001 country assistance evaluation report prepared by the Operations Evaluation Department, “poverty increased massively between 1986 and 1993. The outcome of the Bank’s programs for the 1982-94 is rated unsatisfactory and its institutional development impact negligible.”
The World Bank which has loaned substantial amounts of money to the Biya’s regime since 1982 when he came to power acknowledges poverty reduction efforts under its country assistance program (CAS) has been a stack failure both in the education, health and agriculture sectors.
Net official development assistance and official aid received by Biya and his government grew from about $605850000 in 2002 to $648340000 in 2009. Millions of US Dollars flowed from UN agencies to the Biya’s regime in the last several decades such as UNAIDS, UNDP, UNICEF, UNHCR, WFP and WHO with United Nations Development Program aid almost doubling from 2002 to 2010.
The poverty reduction strategy which President Biya praised several times in speeches in the past decade such as during a 2003 conference in Tokyo laid out comprehensive ground work to reduce poverty in Cameroon. The strategy relied heavily on international development assistance for its effective implementation.
Several times in the past decade as in previous decades, World Bank officials flew into Cameroon to jointly evaluate Cameroon’s performance in the implementation of a joint economic program. At the end of every visit to the country, the World Bank representative – sometimes accompanied by the representative of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will go in front of state TV cameras and make ‘positive’ pronouncements about Cameroon’s effort to meet the Bank’s exigencies. What that meant is that each time Cameroon is passed fit – it means more money.
We drilled down World Bank development indicators for Cameroon just as the world conference on Sustainable development opened in Rio de Janeiro. The reason why we did this is because, the international community is likely to make stronger commitments here is Rio about funding sustainable development efforts in developing regions of the world. What this means is that, the life of unborn Cameroonian children are likely to ne mortgaged with more loans without a clear picture of the success of previous loans.
Overall, the World Bank has hundreds of indicators through which it measures development of countries around the world. For practical reasons, we compared just a few of the indicators to see how the country has fared in the past decade. We examined decline and/or increase in areas such as prevalence rate of HIV, mortality rate, access to electricity, teacher/pupil ratio, number of teachers etc. We also looked at other areas that show the improvement in living conditions of a population such as the growth of the number of internet users. For those who may want to read the entire report, we have provided it for you.
HIV/Aids prevalence Rate:
With respect to HIV/Aids prevalence in Cameroon, the World Bank data shows that there is has been a negligible drop in prevalence of HIV in Cameroon during the past ten years. In other words, the prevalence of deadly HIV virus fell from 5.5 percent in 2002 to 5.3 percent in 2009. Keep in mind, the whole of the past decade in Cameroon was dominated with a ‘focused’ anti HIV campaigned championed for long by the man who is now spending time at the Kondengui maximum security prison, Hubert OlanguenaAwono. Money poured into government hands from the World Health Organization, specialized funding agency to fight HIV and several bi-lateral partners of the country. Most of the pioneer government officials entrusted with the fight against the pandemic are in jail today for alleged embezzlement - perhaps a reason why much ground has not been covered in fighting HIV.
Electricity:
World Bank data does not show recent stats – but it indicates less than half of Cameroonian haveaccess to electricity – 48.7 percent to be exact of the total population. Biya’s regime has received substantial sums to implement renewable energies programs in the country especially as talk of new forms of energy became mainstream with the climate change talks in the past decade. It would be interesting to see how many more people get electricity with the completion of the LomPangar dam in the East region.
Life Expectancy and Mortality Rate:
Life expectancy crept up from 49 to 51 years from the start to the end of the past decade. But infant mortality did not improve. First of all, the World Bank documents a lamentable and pathetic one bed per thousand patients in Cameroon and finds out that many more children are still likely to do before they get a chance to celebrate their first anniversary.
Internet Users:
Cameroonians using the internet did not grow much in the last ten years. About 60000 Cameroonians used the internet in 2002 and by 2011 the figure was well under 80000 representing less than a 15 percent increase in ten years. At the same time countries like Tunisia, Morocco, Rwanda and South Africa saw an increase of more 100 percent of people using the internet. Considering the importance of internet connectivity for development and today’s economy – it would seem Cameroon isn’t seizing this great opportunity to spur its growth. Several times in the past decade, President Paul Biya emphasized the important of what he called at the time new information and communication technologies to the nations youths. Money from the UNDP and other aid agencies was used to set up multimedia units in schools across Cameroon and what we know is ten years after – there has been a marginal improvement in the number of people using internet.
Teacher-pupil ratio:
One bright spot in the World Bank report is the fact that literacy rate and the number of teachers recruited to teach in Cameroonian schools has increased. The number of primary school teachers doubled from 2002 to 2010 while the teacher/pupil gap narrowed by about 25 percent in ten years.
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