The members of the National Partner Platform holding their first board meeting in Yaounde.

A new project to revive life in some communities in the North and Far North Regions which the military has liberated from Boko Haram control has been set into motion. The two-year project comprises the Cameroon Window of the Regional Stabilisation Facility of the Lake Chad Basin and is being put in place by the United Nations Development Programme, UNDP. The first meeting of the National Partner Platform on Monday October 7, 2019, involving all stakeholders, notably UNDP, the Ministry of Economy, Planning and Regional Development, and financial partners, marked the effective kick off of the project. According to Jean Luc Stalon, Resident Representative of UNDP, the Lake Chad Regional Stabilisation Strategy is sub-divided into nine key pillars. While presenting the project, Stalon said the specific objective is the immediate stabilsation of target areas where the military has been able to push back Boko Haram. “We can’t say good bye to Boko Haram and then say welcome to poverty,” the UNDP Resident Representative underscored. He noted that schools, markets, hospitals, police and gendarmerie stations, courts, as well as other structures destroyed as a result of the Boko Haram war will be reconstructed. The Executive Secretary of the Lake Chad Basin Commission, Mamman Nuhu pledged the Commission’s commitment to mobilising support for the success of the regional strategy. He said the success of the strategy will largely depend on the collective participation and collaboration of all.

The Executive Secretary noted that the c...