Youth-Driven Social Accountability Indicators in Cameroon: A Study Report

1. PRESENTATION OF A STUDY REPORT ON: ASSESSING YOUTH DRIVEN SOCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY INDICATORS WITHIN THE 2030 AGENDA LANDSCAPE IN CAMEROON BY: NGALIM EUGINE NYUYDINE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR – CAMYOSFOP CHAIR – CPDE YOUTH SECTOR, AFRICA CHAIR – PEACE AND SECURITY CLUSTER, AU ECOSOCC FORMER MEMBER - NATIONAL COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS (NCHRF), CAMEROON.

2. PLAN • INTRODUCTION • RATIONAL OF THE PROJECT • METHODOLOGY FOR THE STUDY • ANALYSIS ON DATA FROM BOTH PRIMARY AND SECONDARY SOURCES • RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ACTION • CONCLUSION

3. INTRODUCTION • CAMYOSFOP was created in 1999 with official legalization from the government of Cameroon on 10 October 2001. • Its mission is working on the promotion of moral and traditional values within the youth milieu through youth development, human rights and conflict resolution as prerequisite to a culture of peace. • In order to influence policy on youth development, CAMYOSFOP develops policy and position papers for advocacy on youth issues. • Youth Unemployment and Migration (2010); • Agriculture and Vocational Training as Gateway to Youth Employment (2012); • Education System Reforms for Youth Employment in Cameroon (2014); The Contribution of Youth-Driven CSOs in Advancing the Istanbul Principles and Accountability (2016); • South-South Cooperation Human Rights Inclinations: Progress and limitations in Sino-Cameroon and Sino-Zimbabwe cooperation within the Agenda 2030 Landscape (2017). • 2005 CAMYOSFOP became the Deputy Coordinator of the National Platform on Financing for Development; the Global Social and Economic Group (GSEG), Cameroon and in 2013 she was a founder of the CPDE Youth Sector and Chair for Africa. • CAMYOSFOP has been part of almost all processes on youth development at the national and global levels and at the forefront of advocating for youth involvement in Development Effectiveness for over a decade.

4. RATIONALE OF THE STUDY • The current report is in line with the outcome of three processes that all recommended the putting place of a youth indicator as part of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (GPEDC): • Youth forum on the Second High Level Meeting (HLM2) on Development Effectiveness held in Nairobi from Nov 28 – Dec 1, 2016. • Nairobi Outcome Document (NOD) on the HLM2. • National Youth Workshop on Development Effectiveness held in Yaounde on 6 – 7 April 2017. • The report is therefore a pace setter to the inclusion of a youth indicator in GPEDC indicators on the evaluation of Development Effectiveness at the global level. • Considering the every development initiative is now focused on the SDGs we decided link the issues of the study to the targets of the various SDGs concern. • The current report is an ongoing process and we can’t claim that it provide all what is needed for a youth indicator on Development Effectiveness and the 2030 Agenda Land scape in Cameroon

5. METHODOLOGY FOR THE STUDY The conduct of the study included: • Used of primary sources including a questionnaire and interview administered to key sectors. • Used of Secondary sources through desk review and online sources. • Used of the SPSS program to analyze the data collected. • Analysis of both the extrapolated data and data from desk reviews and online sources. • Finalization of the report in both English and French.

6. SAMPLING OF THE QUESTIONNAIRE • The questionnaire covered the following issues: Unemployment rate, vocational training, quality of education, social security, youth participation in decision making, entrepreneurship, transition from informal to formal sector, youth budgeting, and migration. • 100 questionnaires were administered to:youth CSOs, youth representatives in decision making instances, teachers, employers, taxation Department, and the Banking sector.

7. ANALYSIS ON YOUTH DRIVEN SOCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY INDICATORS ON DEVELOPMENT EFFECTIVENESS • UNEMPLOYMENT: In spite of government efforts in curbing unemployment, very little results are achieved as unemployment rate in Cameroon increased to 4.51 %in 2016 from 4.37 %in 2015 • From our survey inadequate employment policies that have stifled the creation of decent jobs for youths is attested by 86% of respondents. While 93% of youths affirming that the business climate is not friendly enough to find a decent job or create one through self-employment.

8. VOCATIONAL TRAINING • Despite efforts by government, there are still existing gaps in accessibility of training centers, quality of curricular and affordability of tuition fee. The higher education and vocational training centers are characterized with trainings that do not match the job market. Private vocational training institutes are more prone to profit making. Most of the training centres are found in urban areas and 42% of people in urban areas have benefited from vocational training as compared to 18.4% in rural areas.

9. SOCIAL SECURITY • Cameroon has the highest out-of-pocket health expenditure in Africa, which leads to impoverishment of households. HIV-AIDS prevalence rate is one of the highest in the sub region especially amongst the youth. • The social security system is insufficient due to lack of a comprehensive strategy. Only a minute portion of the youth, salaried workers governed by the labor code and public workers (10% of the population) is theoretically covered. • In order to increase coverage, in 2014 Cameroon opened social security benefits to independent workers including the informal sector (predominantly made up of youths). The National Voluntary Social Security Scheme for the informal sector is an opening to create proper social security floors for youths.

10. YOUTH PARTICIPATION IN DECISION MAKING PROCESSES • Despite the existence of voluntary mechanisms, there is no mandatory youth participation mechanism validated by a law in Cameroon. Youth participation is severely threatened by the lack of legal instruments that warrant their mandatory quota in key governance institutions. The consequence is generational conflicts, lack of spaces for dialogue between adults and youth and also a low representation in decision bodies such as parliamentary assemblies, municipal bodies and the community at large.

11. ENTREPRENEURSHIP • Over the last 20 years, entrepreneurship education and training programs for youth and women have thrived, given their promise and potential to promote entrepreneurial skills and attitudes. • In spite of the inroads in entrepreneurship, multiplicity of factors still affects entrepreneurship. In a general enterprise census conducted by NIS in 2009: taxation (58.8%); corruption (50.6%); access to loans (37.6%); administrative procedures (35.2%); unfair competition (25.8%); infrastructures (18.4%); and the cost of financing loans (18%).

12. YOUTH SENSITIVE BUDGETING • Past and ongoing financial flows in Cameroon that are a vital indicator of what government is investing in youth development is not well documented. Cameroon since 2016 after its debt canceling compilation trend has never made a debt contracting service where youths are involved. • As a means to fight against youth unemployment, the government has put in place several initiatives to promote youth self-employment. These initiatives however lack coordination, as they are spread throughout several ministries

13. TRANSITION FROM THE INFORMAL TO THE FORMAL SECTOR • Transfers from the informal sector to the formal sector remain slow or almost non-existent. A majority of informal production units do not have tax payer number and formal accounts. • Faced with these challenges youths have resulted to international migration in search for jobs. Cameroon records one of the highest number of migrants in Africa. In 2005, there were over 8000 Cameroonian young workers in France. Cameroonians migrate first within African; Nigeria is (2,000,000); Gabon (50,000) and Equatorial Guinea (16,000). Considering global political, economic and financial upheavals during the last ten years and lack of current statistics on illegal emigration the number must have skyrocketed. • The government conscious of the magnitude of the challenges youth face, have signed several instruments and developed youth policies aimed at promoting development effectiveness such as the creation of the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Civic Education specifically in charge of management and empowerment of youth, the gradual professionalization of education, the designing of special programs such as PAJER- U, PIASSI, PANEJ, Youth Triennial Plan etc aimed at curbing youth unemployment and with a focus on the implementation of the Growth and Employment Strategic Paper (GESP). • Despite the laudable efforts made by the government, the ever growing youth challenges still persist in Cameroon.

14. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ACTION Recommendations to Government • The government should significantly reduce taxes for startups in order to attract more young people into business and entrepreneurship. • The government should set up a modern system of tracking remittances. • The government should allocated mandatory quotas for youths in order to guarantee their effective participation in key institutions and committees that make decisions for the common good of citizens. • Government should make necessary vocational training policy reforms in order to ensure that trainees are trained for the job market as well as making it mandatory for every trainee to do a professional placement or internship. • Key government ministries in the education sector should ease access to text books through tax incentives. • Government should create a favorable business climate to ease access to business capital for small entrepreneurs within the informal sector as a tangible means to create decent jobs. • Government should put in place a program for monitoring and tracking the rate of migration, in and out of Cameroon.

15. Recommendation to the CSOs • Strengthen the capacity of youth driven CSOs to ease the popularization of the voluntary social security scheme. • Engage more youth driven CSOs to disseminate information on projects that affects them. • CSOs should be involve in undertaking an annual monitoring of domestic and international financial flows for youth development.

16. RECOMMANDATIONS POUR L’ACTION Recommandations au gouvernement • Le gouvernement devrait réduire considérablement les impôts pour les « startups » afin d'attirer plus de jeunes dans les affaires et l'entrepreneuriat. • Le gouvernement devrait mettre en place un système moderne pour la traçabilité des transferts de fonds des nationaux de l’étranger. • Le gouvernement devrait allouer des quotas obligatoires pour les jeunes, afin de garantir leur participation effective aux institutions et comités clés de prise de décisions pour le bien commun des citoyens. • Le gouvernement devrait procéder aux réformes nécessaires de la politique de formation professionnelle afin de garantir que les apprenants soient formés pour le marché du travail et qu'il soit obligatoire pour chacun d’eux de faire un stage ou un stage professionnel. • Les principaux ministères du secteur de l'éducation devraient faciliter l'accès aux manuels scolaires grâce à des incitations fiscales. • Le gouvernement devrait créer un climat favorable aux affaires pour faciliter l'accès au capital des petites entreprises du secteur informel comme moyen tangible de créer des emplois décents. • Le gouvernement devrait mettre en place un programme de monitoring et de traçage du taux de migration, hors du Cameroun et vers le Cameroun.

17. Recommendations aux OSC • Renforcer la capacité des OSC dirigées par les jeunes pour faciliter la vulgarisation du régime de sécurité sociale volontaire. • Engager d’avantage d'OSC qui s’intéresse à la jeunesse pour diffuser des informations sur les projets qui les concernent. • Les OSC devraient participer au suivi annuel des flux financiers nationaux et internationaux pour le développement des jeunes.

18. CONCLUSION CAMYOSFOP would be grateful for government and Development Partners to consider this report and others published by CAMYOSFOP to improve on government policies on youth involvement in Development Effectiveness and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. Other studies published by CAMYOSFOP includes: • Youth Unemployment and Migration (2010); • Agriculture and Vocational Training as Gateway to Youth Employment (2012); • Education System Reforms for Youth Employment in Cameroon (2014); • The Contribution of Youth-Driven CSOs in Advancing the Istanbul Principles and Accountability (2016); • South-South Cooperation Human Rights Inclinations: Progress and limitations in Sino-Cameroon and Sino-Zimbabwe cooperation within the Agenda 2030 Landscape (2017).