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THE CAMEROON INFORMATION AND EDUCATION DAY, CIED

What is CIED?

“The real question for public policy is, if I have an extra dollar in Africa, do I want to spend it on a mobile phone, on education or on health care?” “As an economist I want Africa to grow, I want them to have more opportunities for education, for jobs and to have better prices for their goods and to understand what market opportunities are and for that they need information” Len Waverman, Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics


Africa Agenda is poised to help fill the educational and informational knowledge gap about Africa by serving as a resource for timely information. We have been fulfilling this mission since January 2005 and are very excited to continue this ground breaking work with the Cameroon Information and Education Day (CIED).

This project consists of distributing 100,000 copies of the Cameroon Constitution in English and French to academic institutions, civil society groups and individuals in order to spread knowledge about this African country and the concept of constitutional democracy.  
 
Africa Agenda kicked off Phase I of the CIED in Colorado on May 7, 2009 at the Community College of Aurora in Colorado.  As part of the CIED, we prepared 36 questions for anyone to use in testing their knowledge about the Cameroon constitution. Download sample questions here.
 

Click to request a DVD of the CIED kick off event.

Click to request a free copy of the Cameroon constitution


 
“Do not accept excuses and crticisms for why things won’t work or can’t be done, but rather reframe the objections into problems to be overcome rather reasons not to try” Robert Sutton and Jeffrey Pfeffer(The Knowing-Doing Gap, Harvard Business School Press, 1999)

About Cameroon:
The West African country of Cameroon is a constitutional republic roughly the size of California. Its population is approximately 18.4 million people and consists of 240 tribes. French and English are the official languages. The economy of the country is mainly agricultural and it also exports petroleum and timber.
The country is politically stable, has never experienced a war, and is currently headed by President Paul Biya. The administration recently made changes to the constitution in the form of amendments, which makes the CIEP especially timely. Africa Agenda has set aside February 11th, celebrated as Cameroon’s Youth Day and May 20th, celebrated as Cameroon’s National Day as CIED activity days.
 

Rationale for CIED:
  • A Freedom of information project ( FOI)
  • Promoting open governments. “Government information hoarding thwarts development”, many African civil society groups, including journalists, public officers, parliamentarians and faith based institutions in Africa recently concluded. Click here to download the report
  • Helping with bridging the information gap between citizens and governments in Africa.
  • Dealing with difficulties of accessing information about Cameroon’s constitution. When found, information about Cameroon is not well organized or properly documented.
  • Education and knowledge dissemination to Cameroonian and US High school students and institutions of higher learning. see list of U.S High Schools that our organization has visited.

More Information better than less in formation

Africa Agenda is in the preparatory stages towards the provision of digitized copies of the revised Cameroon constitution on this website. In the meantime, free copies of the updated, revised copy of the Cameroon constitution, in english and french, can be requested from us. Email or call us today to request your copy.  

 

 

TODAY'S AFRICA

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“Today’s Africa is clearly different from the Africa of the early 1990’s, when it was coming out of the declines after the first two oil price shocks, the debt problems, and stagnation of the adjustments years. Thanks to the recent acceleration of growth, there is a higher economic base to work with”

 “Africa today enjoys better economic prospects because its leaders have undertaken major reforms during the past 10 years and are taking increasing control of their economic destiny”

“African governments are making regional initiatives in conflict resolution and are taking action to improve governance under the African Union and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD)”

The World Bank’s Country Performance and Institutional Assessment (CPIA) score is a broad measure of policy and institutional performance. With regard to Africa they have used 16 items to measure performance based on economic management, structural policies, policies for social inclusion and equity and public sector management and institutions.

In 2005 the CPIA score for African countries was 2.8. By 2006, it was 3.2

According to the World Bank, countries with CPIA scores of greater than or equal to 3.5 by 2006 tend to have higher growth and lower inflation than those with lower than 3.5. Only exception is Zimbabwe.

Sign of the Times in Africa

In 2008, the Probability for conflict has declined in many African Nations from 17 to 6.

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Reduced Inflation

From 1980’s to 2008- About 10 countries experienced hyper inflation at various points in time

Now, Inflation in Africa has come down since 1995. Inflation has fallen below 10% since 2002, except in Zimbabwe

Number of countries that have kept inflation below 10% a year Increased from 11 to 30 countries

READ MORE ...

Sources: Is Africa’s Economy at a Turning Point? The World Bank Africa Region-Policy Research Working Paper/World Bank Policy Research Papers –World Bank Development Indicators (WDI), February 2008