Stakeholders’ Contributions to Rural Development in Mezam Division, Cameroon

Abstract

Rural development is a continuous process facilitated by stakeholders who play complementary roles. In rural Mezam Division notwithstanding, there exists a dearth of information on the stakeholder categories, their spatial distribution and intervention domains in the rural development process. This paper examines the stakeholder categories, their spatial distribution within the various sub-divisions and specific domains of intervention in the rural development process in Mezam Division. Field surveys, focused group discussions, interviews and the administration of 260 questionnaires constituted the main primary data sources while a review of institutional, library and internet sources served as secondary source materials of data gathering for this research. The collected data was analysed using descriptive techniques. The results categorized the rural development stakeholders in Mezam Division into four; state institutions (16%), Community Based Organisations (CBOs) (49%), Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) (27%) and Cooperative Development Agencies (CDAs) (8%). These stakeholders are unevenly concentrated within the four sub-divisions in Mezam Division as follows; Santa (33%), Bafut (28%), Tubah (23%) and Bali (16%).The areas of intervention of the stakeholders include water supply schemes (39%), school construction (20%), agriculture (17%), road maintenance (8%), health (7%), erection of community halls and palaces (5%) and electricity supply schemes (4%). The paper concludes that the rural populations should be fully empowered and their local institutions like the rural councils be made totally autonomous. In this way, the rural councils could easily rally the rural people, raise funds, execute projects, coordinate the activities of other stakeholders and serve as the custodian of rural development.

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“…However, despite these efforts, the results have not been satisfactory, and the systems and mechanisms of rural economic institutions need to be more effective. This has led to further dependence on government assistance and a need for more independence among the rural population [1] [2] [3]. Dependency theory arguments indicate that this can contribute to the creation of a detrimental cycle of dependency that results in the degradation of individual motivation to be self-reliant [4].…”