Taking Stock of Achievements in Maga

In March 2008 I became a volunteer with VSO (Voluntary Services Overseas) and I took up a position as Institutional Development Advisor to the Local Council of Maga in the Far North of Cameroon. This post is an attempt to take stock, on my return to Ireland in March 2011, of what has been achieved and of what remains to be done.

The diagnosis which I carried out in 2008 revealed that Maga council’s capacities were very weak indeed. The mayor made all the decisions and he and the Secretary General did virtually all the work. The executive had never met as a group and the council subcommittees had never been convened. The annual budget was prepared by the mayor and Secretary General without the participation of the councillors, including the four deputy mayors, who received the budget proposals at the council sessions at which they were approved. Around two-thirds of the 40 councillors do not speak French and are illiterate (the mayor is the only one who has a little English). Around two-thirds of the council’s 30 staff never did any work at all and most of the others did only occasional work. Only one (the Secretary General) had finished secondary school and several had dropped out of primary school. The council’s finances were in a very sorry state, partly because the previous administration had not had accounts approved during their five-year term and because a large sum of money had gone missing. It was impossible to apply to Government and other organisations for funds because their first demand was to see the accounts for the past three years. Nothing worked in the council offices, and in particular the computer and the photocopier had not been working for a very long time.

Maga is in a remote and disadvantaged area. For example, there are no surfaced roads in the county and in its 50 primary schools the average class size is around 150 and there are almost no desks. The electricity supply in Maga is very unreliable and may be cut for weeks. The rainy season, usually from June to September, can be devastating (as it was in 2010 when 14 people were killed and 5,000 lost their homes in one particular storm) and floods prevent people from coming to meetings. The city of Maroua is only 80 kilometers away but the road is bad and the buses which were in use in 2008 and 2009 broke down several times on most journeys.

Despite all the weaknesses and defects, there has been very good commitment to improve on the part of the mayor, his deputies, the councillors, the staff and the community. I did workshops for the executive, the councillors, the chairmen and secretaries of the subcommittees, the staff, the tax collectors and the village chiefs and the response was always good. It was necessary to begin at a very basic level and I needed to write plays and get local people to present them in Mousgoum (the most common local language) to get the messages across. For example, one of the workshops which I presented to the councillors, the staff and the village chiefs had to do with behaviours such as turning up late to meetings, or not turning up and not sending a message, taking phone calls in meetings and having conversations at meetings, behaviours motivated by prejudice, behaviours such as finding excuses for not taking action on difficult issues and also general lack of proactivity. On behaviours, as on the other areas mentioned below, there is consensus that there has been a good improvement although there is great scope for further improvement.

In relation to building the capacities of the council, the main achievements were:

* The mayor now communicates more, consults with others and delegates responsibilities.

* The executive has regular meetings at which important issues, including reports on receipts and expenditure, are discussed.

* The council subcommittees now meet and were involved in producing the annual budgets for 2010 and 2011.

* The finances of the council have improved, partly because tax receipts have increased under active management by the executive, and the accounts have been brought up to date.

* The council now has an IT room with two computers, a printer and an electricity generator and training of some staff in IT has commenced.

It has to be admitted also that there has been regression on many of these improvements, particularly in periods when I have been absent.

My role was to develop the capacities of the council so that the council could develop the infrastructure of the county and provide services to its citizens, including disadvantaged groups. During my time in Maga I found that there were many opportunities to launch projects for infrastructure development and to help disadvantaged groups. There is a lot of scope to access Cameroonian state funds for infrastructural projects but it is necessary to bring engineers and other experts to the county to prepare the estimates and plans. With the help of donations from some friends in Ireland I was able to support the preparation of proposals to the state

* to build 80 kilometers of roads to remote villages (unsurfaced but hopefully accessible in the rainy season),

* to bring piped water to Guirvidig (one of three big villages, the others being Maga, which has piped water, and Pouss for which a project has already been approved),

* to build ten “forages” (deep enclosed wells with pumps),

* to bring electrity to nine villages

* and to strengthen the electricity connection between Maga and Pouss.

In relation to disadvantaged groups, I supported a census of 350 handicapped people in the county and supported bringing a team from a local NGO, the Fondation de Bethlêem, to examine them. The Foundation is currently constructing tricycles for 20 of them and has performed remedial operations on two and there are plans to provide crutches for others, the costs being met jointly by the Foundation, the council, my friends and the families of the handicapped. I have also supported operations for 17 people suffering from hare’s lip, a condition which tends to have them treated as outcasts since local people believe that they are under spells and will bring misfortune on anybody who associates with them. Discussions are in progress on providing operations for people with cataracts.

At this stage, two years of the five-year plan to build the capacities of the council have been implemented. The work which remains is very real. The council has recently got approval to recruit six new staff with experience relevant to key roles and has also decided on a revised organisation in which existing staff will have their roles redefined. Once these changes are in place there are many actions in the plan which need to be carried out, starting with training and including the introduction of good people management practices. With support from the Government-backed PNDP (Programme National de Développement Participatif), the council has started work on preparing its development plan. This plan will set out the infrastructural and other developments which will be prioritised over the next five years. It is likely to be completed around June and the projects referred to above will be integrated into it. The council’s capacities will certainly need to be strengthened if it is to manage effectively the resulting projects.

One project which could not wait has to do with repairing pumps in forages, most of which are in need of repair. There was a serious outbreak of cholera in the county in 2010 and this is likely to flare up again at the onset of the rainy season in June in addition to the “normal” water-borne diseases, such as typhoid. I initiated this project before leaving for home and am coordinating it by telephone and email. I will cover this in a subsequent post.

VSO has been looking for a replacement for me for over a year without success and my return to Maga in October 2011, following completion of my original contract in May 2011, was an attempt to maintain progress while the search continued. I think that my return made a big difference but it is vital that VSO find a replacement for at least two years to carry through the remaining actions in the plan, particularly those which follow the recruitment and reorganisation of personnel and the preparation of the development plan. The main requirements are experience of management and passable French. The latter might appear intimidating to those not fluent in French but in reality people are very tolerant and helpful in relation to language (only one-third of them speak French in any case so they are very used to language difficulties). There is also a very good national volunteer in Maga who works closely with the international volunteer and helps with language as well as with cultural, social, legislative and other practical issues.