The labour intensive work method (HLI Approach) in projects, migration of informal to formal activities, increase of productivity in rural areas and private sector employment are as many levers to be activated to consolidate the socio-economic integration of the populations.
In Cameroon, official data reveals that the share of jobs created by the formal private sector drop- ped during the 2005-2010 period, moving from 4.8% to only 3.8%. In addition to this reality in a sector rather called upon to be the driver of economic growth, the labour market in Cameroon is characterized by a strong predominance of the informal sector, the real nursery of underemployment in the country (77% in 2014). According to the Ecam-4 report, the informal employment rate within the active population culminated around 88.6% in 2014, thereby registering only a 1.9 point drop over a four-year period.
In order to promote decent jobs and economic integration in the country, Government has made this issue one of the four pillars of the 2020-2030 National Development Strategy, with the main objective of creating more than five million quality jobs during the current decade.
To achieve this objective, Government primarily intends to activate the lever of public procurements, by capitalizing on opportunities offered by the ‘‘High-Labour Intensity’’ (HLI) approach in carrying out public investment projects, including those with external funding. This approach, which consists in using local raw materials and labour also enables to leave 70 to 80% of the project budget in the locality hosting the project, buttressed Medard Kouatchou, Head of the HLI Unit at the Ministry of Economy, Planning and Regional Development.
“Government has made this issue one of the four pillars of the 2020-2030 National Development Strategy, with the main objective of creating more than five million quality jobs during the current decade”.
Then, is its desire to boost job creation during the 2020-2030 period, Government has taken the commitment to encourage the majority of enterprises to migrate from the informal to the formal sector through the provision of some incentive measures.
This, as listed out by NDS30, notably includes the ‘‘specific support for Very Small Enterprises (VSE) in terms of taxation and access to micro- credit, in order to enhance the attractiveness of this status; providing incentives for VSEs to transform into SMEs/SMIs; consolidating the restricted access provisions for SMEs/SMIs in some public contracts; reforming the subcontracting mechanism; and accelerating the setting up of business incubators in technical and vocational training institutions’’. In the same vein, it is provided to preserve jobs in large companies and encourage them to create many more jobs, notably through the observance of the principle of Cameroonian management”, ‘‘better exploitation and development of sources of jobs offered by the green and blue economies’’.
Lastly, according to NDS30, Government intends to combat unemployment and trends towards underemployment in the country through the setting up of Development Cooperative Societies (DCS) in all councils. This instrument aims at tapping on the potential of small farmers and other family farmers who, as we learn, represent three-quarters of Cameroon’s agricultural producers.
Concretely, through actions such as facilitating access to inputs, popularization of high-yield techniques, organization of bulk marketing of products, development of agricultural insurance, DCS intends, by the year 2030, to increase agricultural productivity, employment and income of inhabitants of rural areas.
BRM
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