(Business in Cameroon) - Since 2016, approximately 20,500 Cameroonian households have benefited on a monthly basis from money transfers as part of the Social Nets project implemented by the Cameroonian government with the support of the World Bank. The information was revealed during a recent mid-term assessment of this project fighting against poverty, which is currently implemented in the Far North, Northern, Adamawa, Eastern and North-West regions as well as the two main cities of Cameroon which are Yaoundé and Douala.

In the framework of the project, every beneficiary receives, over a period of 24 months, transfers of FCfa 20,000 every two months, and FCfa 80,000 on the 12^th and 24^th months, thus a global amount of FCfa 360,000. To respect the commitment of using these funds to solve the crucial problems their families face such as paying school fees, groceries or hospital bills, most of the beneficiaries used these funds as capital to start a small business and many other income-generating activities, we learned.

As a reminder, the Social Nets project was experimented for the first time between November 2013 and January 2016 by the Cameroonian government, to reduce poverty and food insecurity in the Souledé-Roua borough, presented as the poorest in the country. The success of this pilot phase led the government to extend it to other regions, to decrease the level of poverty in households considered as poorest.

BRM