Employment impact assessment of the 11th European Development Fund to the National Participatory Development Programme in Cameroon

For a summary of the report and its main findings, please see the Information Brief below.

The 1996 Constitution of Cameroon introduced a fundamental innovation, that of the concept of Decentralized Territorial Authority (CTD). The CTDs, such as municipalities and regions, were granted the possibility to administer themselves freely. However, due to their insufficient human, financial, and infrastructural capacities, the Government created in 2004 the National Program for Participatory Development (PNDP) with the support of its technical and financial partners to strengthen the decentralization process. The funding provided by the European Development Fund (EDF) and the Debt Relief and Development Cooperation (C2D) mechanism in 2017 enabled the development of the agropastoral PNDP in four regions, namely Adamawa, East, Far North, and North. As part of its closure activities, the PNDP undertook to assess the impact of its activities on employment with the support of the STRENGTHEN2 project of the International Labour Organization, co-financed by the EU.

The methodology for evaluating direct employment was structured around a statistical survey based on a sampling of PNDP-agropastoral micro-projects. Indirect and induced employment, on the other hand, was evaluated using the job multiplier method based on an input-output model.

The study results show that the agropastoral PNDP created approximately 6,598 jobs, of which about 5,057 were direct jobs and 1, 541 were induced and indirect jobs. These jobs are mainly temporary, with an average duration of 10 months, and provide only limited access to social protection for workers. Direct employment mainly benefited men, as only 7.2% of those recruited were women. The distribution of the workforce by qualifications revealed that 54.1% of those recruited were technicians, 40.4% were labourers, and 5.5% were engineers.

The survey showed that 78.2% of women hold labourer positions, exposing them to lower wages. Compared to men in the same category, women were likely to have lower average wages due to less working hours.

This report is only available in French - Évaluation des impacts sur l’emploi de l’Appui du 11ème Fonds européen de développement au Programme national de développement participatif au Cameroun