D.

EXCHANGE AND EVALUATION ACTIVITIES

In addition to funding and training activities, CIDA also makes field visits. Several NGOs have been
visited, including ASAFE, CEC-PROM and APEC.

1. Meetings with NGOs

CIDA, in its relations with Cameroonian civil society on the promotion of gender, makes field visits to
better inform itself of the progress of relations on gender equality in the various projects. Thus, several
beneficiaries of its funding for gender promotion projects were visited, notably ASAFE and CEC-PROM.

The Promotion-Coopérative d'Epargne du Cameroun (CEC-PROM) is a bank that groups together several
microfinance bodies for women. During CIDA's field visit to Douala, it was noted that the beneficiaries of
its services are women who do not belong to the most disadvantaged strata. Most of them work in the
haute couture, service, food and general trade sectors. All of them are women from the formal sector
who have an appreciable level of education106. The CEC-PROM loan has helped to boost their activities
and some of them would have liked CEC-PROM to offer more training, involving the human resources of
the promoters107.

CEC-PROM's results are quite positive, as the loan repayment rate is 90%.

The second NGO visited by the CDAl was the Association pour le Soutien et l'Appui à la Femme
Entrepreneure (ASAFE). The beneficiaries of ASAFE are mostly in the informal sector, carrying out small-
scale activities in the market. Those who were met by

10 R. Tankeu, "Mission genre et développement au Cameroun", Yaoundé, May 200, p.10. 10 Ibid.

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The women who were interviewed by CIDA in 2005 unanimously acknowledged that it was thanks to
ASAFE's loans that they were able to expand their business and improve their living conditions. One of
them received a loan of 200,000 CFA francs and the other one of 1000,000 CFA francs. The one who
received 200,000 CFA francs complained about the high cost of the loan and is not ready to apply for
another loan. The loans are based on the principle of joint and several guarantees.

From all these meetings, whether with the government, donors or civil society, it emerged that the
major needs and problems faced by women are: difficult marketing due to the isolation of the areas,
lack of control over the processing and storage of products and limited access to productive resources
(inputs, land, credit). The same is true for NGOs, which receive more support from CIDA, as shown by
the example of APEC and MPPF/OCSD.

2 Example of NGO projects supported by CIDA: APEC and MPPF/OCSD

a. APEC
APEC is the Appui à la protection de l'environnement au Cameroun. Since 1999, the activities of this
NGO have focused on the participatory management of forest resources and the sustainable
management of forest heritage, in this case home gardens. Participatory management of forest
resources has two components: the creation of management committees for forest royalties and
support for the acquisition of community forests. Given the priorities of the time and limited resources,
the forestry royalty management committees have never been set up108

108 R. TANKEU, Bilan de l'intégration, p.20.

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