An approach for the evaluation of rural governance in Cameroon: are community forests really forests for the communities?

Hilaire Nkengfack (), Claude Njomgang () and Daniela Sarpe ()
Additional contact information
Hilaire Nkengfack: University of Dschang, Cameroon
Claude Njomgang: University of Yaoundé II/Soa, Cameroon
Daniela Sarpe: Dunarea de Jos University of Galati, Romania

Economics and Applied Informatics, 2009, issue 2, 85-100

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to evaluate the contribution of the traditional exploitation of timber, in a community framework, to the respect of governance principles in actions for the fight against poverty in some rural communities in Cameroon. In 1990, the government of Cameroon adopted laws on the freedom of association that authorised teaming up for the search of possibilities for a better economic welfare of populations. It is in line with this that in 1994, a new forest law which authorises willing communities to organise themselves and request the government to grant them a portion of the national forest of the public domain to be managed by them and for their personal interest. Also, and with the help of the international community, Cameroon elaborated in 1998 its first poverty reduction strategy paper that encouraged amongst others, community actions in the search of solutions to the economic crisis that stroke the country. Through the application of a logit model to the responses collected through a survey carried out on a sample of 200 individuals of the East region of Cameroon, it was noticed that timber exploitation in a community framework does not necessarily lead to the strengthening of the links of belonging to a common community, and to the equitable redistribution of revenues from the exploitation of the community forest.

Keywords: Community forests; gender; equity; governance; fight against poverty; participation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q23 R20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.ann.ugal.ro/eco/Doc2009_2/Nkengfack_Njomgang_Sarpe.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ddj:fseeai:y:2009:i:2:p:85-100

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Economics and Applied Informatics from "Dunarea de Jos" University of Galati, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Gianina Mihai ().