CENTRE FOR RECONSTRUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT
P.O Box 771 Bamenda, North West Cameroon
C RE D EV
CREDEV STRATEGIES & METHODOLOGIES
PREAMBLE
The Centre for Reconstruction and Development (CREDEV) is committed to the
promotion of social change within the frameworks of international development as inscribed in its
articles of association. The object of organizing this organisation is non-profit and charitable, to
operate programmes and implement actions that benefit the poor, vulnerable, marginalized,
underprivileged and the disadvantaged. The creation of this organisation took cognizance of the toll
of poverty of these people, to mitigate and act as a facilitator for their benefit. These groups of
people are hopeless, although they have a lot of initiatives that will never be realized, should there
not be other quarters that would advance their plight. Governments design several programmes to
reduce poverty and improve the living standard of their citizens. However the problem lies in the
implementation of the allocated resources by state officials with lots of conflicting interests,
reducing the impact of the programme to the vulnerable. It is based on this lapses and background
that CREDEV was created and organised under the law of association N o 90/053 of 19 December
1990, registered on 09 November 2004 and incorporated on 10 October. We are founded as an
autonomous professional development organisation operating a private foundation for the benefit of
the public.
The purpose of the creation of CREDEV is the advancement of development within
the universal declaration of human rights upheld by the United Nations. The preamble of the
declaration begins with these words: “Whereas rights of all members of the human family is the
foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.” CREDEV’s objectives are therefore
underpinned by the United Nations Declaration on the Right to Development, Article 1, 1986, which
states: "The right to development is an inalienable human right by virtue of which every human
person and all peoples are entitled to participate in, contribute to, and enjoy economic, social,
cultural and political development, in which all human rights and fundamental freedoms can be
fully realized." We are a start-up non-profit with very limited resources at our disposal to make an
impact in social change. It is on this background that we are registering with the European
Commission to establish a partnership to advance grassroots development in the society.
DEVELOPMENT ADVOCACY
CREDEV operates poverty reduction programmes aimed at advancing the rights to
development encompassing: economic, social and environmental justice, building peace and lasting
social change. Advocating for development policy reforms strengthens vulnerable poor populations.
Poor people are always voiceless and can be heard through civil strives, which often result to tribal
wars as recourse to development assistance. Where governments exclude these groups of people in
their development plans, chaos is ensued. This organisation advocates for the placement of the
above groups of people’s interest at the centre of policy reforms, to reduce poverty. In this respect,
we lobby governments, international donors and foundations by informing them of the actual
investigated situation in the field. This should result to more aid given to vulnerable people and for
continuous planning on regional inequality. We pursue donors and governments to formulate poverty
reduction policies, strategies and its implementation to benefit poor people. The philosophy of
advocacy is to explain to those who govern and have the resources to understand the reality and
existence of poverty in a class of people. Where possible, we lobby through parliamentarians to
change or introduce legislatures that should resolve these issues.
Working in collaboration with state officials and donor partners also helps in making poverty
reduction issues understood. Participating in online networks or in synergies amplifies the existence
of situations that need urgent attention. A useful medium through which advocacy will be made is
the website of this organisation. We will set-up a website with features that people can read all
what we express on behalf of the poor. It will also have features that allow them to react and
respond appropriately to our request for urgent assistance or intervention. We will be involved in
development research on the field to give true information of impact on poverty reduction
strategies to support donors, by acting as intermediaries. Where an action needs an agent to act on
their behalf, we will be prepared to do so based on the terms of obligation and the agreement. Our
reporting will be based on facts confirming to the motto of CREDEV, which is service with probity.
GOOD GOVERNANCE
Promoting good governance protects the human rights of vulnerable people. We
expect governments to be accountable to all acts they carry out for the people they govern.
Although it has never been a government’s policy to exploit or treat her citizens as subjugated
people, the implementations of laws by her representatives in many instances are always
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contentious and controversial. State officials are supposed to govern as servants and not as masters
since they are there because the people voted them to manage their affairs.
We are more interested in development governance rather than in political
governance, which may require us to promote democracy. It is out of the purpose of our registration
and so can only be indirectly supported. We shall provide open public lectures and awareness on the
rights of citizens so that, they can participate actively in decision making to build their country.
During elections, we will assist in electoral supervision where called upon to do so by educating
people on their rights to enfranchisement (to vote and to be also voted into power). Large sums of
money are given to governments through bilateral agreements that end up in the pockets of corrupt
state officials. We shall work not only for the benefit of donors but the state by carrying out
evaluations on implemented projects. Beside these are reviews of ongoing projects to reduce the
risks of failure and reporting to donors.
The philosophy of pursuance of good governance is equality, transparency and
accountability as we believe social justice. No one is above the law since laws are not written for a
certain group of people. They are the fundamental principles that bind a nation together and so no
preferential treatment should be given to those who govern, allowing the others vulnerable to
whatever form of persecution by leaders. Where there is equality, the reward is peace,
development and stability. But where equality and justice lacks, people are treated as captured
victims and such nations are always in turmoil.
Our approach is the promotion of development governance so that every citizen
participates, contributes and enjoys from the outputs as a result. Our website will serve greatly to
report acts of violation of these rights. We do not only expect to publish our research on these
violations but to allow people to have their say published. Conferences, seminars and lectures shall
be held in the public to not only improve people’s awareness of rights but to increase state officials’
rights to obligations of the state to her people. When citizens are fully aware of what a government
must do to improve their standard of living, they will pursue those in power to deliver it. But where
they do not know it, they will be treated without any backing to recourse for litigation. Through this
objective, we expect people to understand that power belongs to the people and not the group of
people who govern them.
PHILANTHROPIC SUPPORT
The advancement of philanthropy by managing trusts and donor’s grants improves access to
resources for poor and vulnerable people. As a non-profit, our activities are charitable aimed at
improving the living conditions of poor people. Some are poor not because they lack the initiatives,
but because they have no facilitator or the means. Where we have been entrusted to manage a trust
for the benefit of poor people, we will ensure that they are treated fairly. This organisation is
building its capacity in order to represent donors where need be in its true sense as a trust
manager.
We are looking for continuous donor supports with major charity organisations that
donate to assist poor and vulnerable people. In this regard, we have initiated the exemption status
501(c)(3) with the Internal Revenue Service of the United States Treasury Department. The first
process has been accomplished as the EIN i.e. Employers Identification Number (N o 98–0581167) has
been assigned to CREDEV. The next process being pursued is the submission of the application for
registration as a private foundation to benefit from tax exemptions. This has been a major huddle to
our fundraising operations in the US as a non-profit organisation seeking donor assistance.
However, the sustainability of this organisation financially is our key concern. We
lack the means to operate as we rely only on donors at the start-up phase of this organisation, to
build our financial capacity. We need donor support to invest in long-term actions that will enable
us to generate income for this organisation’s operations. The income will facilitate direct
intervention in issues that affect the purpose of creating this organisation. Should we be supported
in these actions, we will no longer bore donors each time we are designing a programme. Donors
should be sought where we have such an investment to complement or supplement the resources we
have. This allows them to re-allocate their resources to other sectors and organisations in need. As
a humanitarian organisation, CREDEV wants to be pervasive in the charitable sector and felt
intrinsically by vulnerable poor, wherever it has an obligation. We want therefore to improve access
to resources for the poor by supporting CBOs, NGOs and other groups of poor people or communities
with resources from our own development investments. We have over 100 hectares of land from
which income can be generated that has not yet been exploited.
WOMEN’S RIGHTS
Fostering women’s rights is one of the focuses of this organisation. Gender equality
is an uncompromising discourse of contemporary times. All human beings are equal regardless of sex
before God and the law, but women are not treated equally in communities or in their homes. There
are traditional set-ups which women are regarded as commodities that have been bought and not as
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partners. In these communities they are treated as slaves since their rights have been confiscated.
Women should have rights to land tenure, own property; inherit their husband’s property and the
right to decision making etc.
In a bid to empower women, we advocate for their rights by designing programmes
that enable them to be economically, socially and culturally viable. We work with women by
surveying their needs, building their capacities to be self-reliant. This enable them have a say in all
aspects in the society, that affect them and not to be used as sex objects. Educating the girl child is
one of the basis of capacity building. If every girl child has the opportunity to attain at least primary
education and be able to read and write, this objective will be achievable. We shall break into
traditional practices by giving the girl child the opportunity to basic education. When women are
educated, they will be able to fight for their rights and assume top positions in government, at
parliament and business.
Doing these are achievable through collaboration with other partners by building
synergies with women promoting organisations. We shall work with women donors and specialist
organisations to implement this strategy and approach. Our approach is aimed at not only restoring
the dignity and values of the woman, but the recognition of the contribution she can make in nation
building like men, being our philosophy in sub-Sahara Africa.
CHILDREN’S RIGHTS
The advancement of children’s rights and promotion of access to education and
health to underprivileged, vulnerable children is one of the strategies of CREDEV. We are
protecting children’s rights as a group of people who are easily susceptible to exploitation and
abandonment. Children are always exploited to work on plantations, construction industry, hawkers,
baby-sisters and many more. This is because of their innocence, since they are immature. If they
have access to education, they will hardly be deceived anymore. Children are regarded as the
future generation of every nation, yet they are not always given enough rights particularly in subSahara African countries, who are signatories of the UN convention on children’s rights. Many
parents are unable to provide basic education for their children because of their low income. In
addition, children are easily affected by infectious diseases owing to poor hygiene and health
conditions.
CREDEV supports this group of the society by lobbying for legislature to ban and
punish those who exploit them. We support their education by raising funds to build classrooms,
provide textbooks and also to provide teachers if we have the resources, where not available. We
are interested at increasing access to education for underprivileged children in marginalised
communities, by focusing on learning conditions improvement. In Cameroon, most of the schools in
rural areas have a pupil - teacher ratio of over 200 to 1. In such a set-up, the quality of education
provided is very low as one teacher cannot effectively teach over 200 pupils alone.
In most of these schools, there is no clean drinking water and the spread of water
borne diseases like diarrhoea, typhoid fever, schistosomiasis, etc is common. We intend to build
water supplies for the benefit of these schools and villages to reduce the risks of infections to
protect their health. We build synergies with child advancement networks and donors to give them
the support so that they can contribute in building their countries. When children are not given the
opportunity, they become liabilities instead of assets.
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Promoting sustainable development to secure the livelihoods of poor and vulnerable
people reduces poverty. Natural resources are basic sources to income generation for rural people,
but these resources are not well protected for their benefit. Forests and land are exploited for
logging and farming activities by the state, with little or no compensation to the landlords. The
exclusion of people without the provision of alternative access to these resources increases poverty
and a toll of suffering to poor people.
We intervene by building the capacities of these groups of people to reduce
poverty. These include training and financial support to the sources of their livelihoods. The
philosophy of inclusion strengthens poor people reducing, rural exodus and unemployment. If
people’s livelihoods such as farming, carving, fishing and many more are promoted, they will not be
displaced and poverty will be reduced. Adequate support cannot be provided without donor
assistance. As such, we identify sources of poor people’s livelihoods and contact donors for financial
assistance. When people in townships value cars, the rural vulnerable poor people value bicycles. If
assistance is given that protects their sources of income, then they will be as comfortable as any
other people, who end their livings in urban set-ups.
Where the project is a major source of livelihoods that benefits a large community,
we design a long-term development programme. This enables us to build their capacity adequately
as managers, trained to take over the project on completion by the indigenes and manage it
themselves. The philosophy of this approach is social inclusion and integration. When people are
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trained to manage their assets, they will not blame others for poorly managing their development,
but themselves if failure occurs.
FOOD SECURITY
The enhancement of agricultural productivity through supply of resources and rights to land
tenure empowers vulnerable poor people. This strengthens food security to fight hunger in
vulnerable communities.
Poor people exist because of lack of access to resources including productive land
and inputs. Agriculture is the basis of industrialisation and a major source of foreign earnings for
many African countries including Cameroon and sub-Sahara Africa. Yet not adequate resources are
provided to farmers’ to acquire basic input including seeds, tools and storage facilities for postharvests. A lot of lip services are paid to rural farmers as lofty promises are always made to appease
them; so far from a solution. In Cameroon for instance, over 70% of her population rely on
agriculture for their livelihoods. State assistance to farmers have drastically reduced financially or
with more of technical support. Very limited real input support is given despite well drafted expert
plans. Administrative bottle-neck is a great disease that prevents these farmers to be fairly treated.
However, CREDEV seeks to intervene in sectors that the state does not regularly
assist or do not adequately support. Farming activities which are sources of food security that fight
against hunger are areas of interest to us. Intervening in sectors where the state already has deep
roots will not only lead to failure but lead to conflicts of interest. We want to provide input
materials in agricultural activities of interests to poor people that will boost food security and fight
hunger. Besides inputs are training, processing of produce and its marketing. We want farmers to
have enough to eat and then sell only the surpluses to others.
In this regard, partnership is built with donors to assist us realise this strategy. The
philosophy of this approach is to eat balanced diet and live healthily. Farmers’ surplus will increase
their per capita income as most sub-Sahara African farmers live in less than one dollar per day.
Where a project is large in scale which is not part of our investment, we train the project
committee to be managers of the action. This is to enable them control the action as owners on
completion in order to remain sustainable.
WATER SUPPLY AND SANITATION
The improvement of access to clean drinking water and sanitation facilities is
primordial to good health. Getting clean drinking water is not just a problem to rural communities
but urban residents as well. Where it is available, the quality is very important since it is highly
susceptible to contamination. However, we are highly concerned with provision of clean and safe
drinking water to vulnerable groups of people, living within peri-urban and rural communities. The
reason for placing their interest first on this object is simply because, most government assistance
hardly reach them. In addition, the type of water they drink is appalling as some drink surface water
from streams or rivers. The risk of contamination is very high where this occurs, as we have seen the
consequences of people drinking with cows from the same source in many rural areas. We are very
much interested in supplies by gravity because it is cheap to maintain, compared to boreholes and
pumping systems.
CREDEV’s method of addressing water supply is a participating approach, where all
stakeholders particularly the beneficiaries actively participate. We engage them by forming a
project committee to manage the running of the action right from project inception to completion
and post-project management. Amongst their activities is the sensitisation of the community
members to participate manually, materially and also financially. They are the main driving force of
the project in the village who will manage the implementation together with us. We always ensure
that there is transgender representation in the formation of the committee members. For a seven
member committee, there must be at least two women and one youth holding influential positions.
Our task is to survey the entire community and then produce a situation map, prepare estimates and
write a technical report. We work with them throughout the implementation phase, training
maintenance technicians to take over on completion. At the end of the implementation, the project
execution committee is transformed into a project maintenance committee.
In every water supply, the protection of the catchment or watershed is compulsory
and complementary. Without a thicket of forest, all the water sources will either drop or dry-off. All
these cannot be done without financial support from donors, since vulnerable people have limited
sources of income. In most instances, they are capable of providing raw building materials in the
form of sand, building stones and sometimes wood. Cash contributions are not always encouraging
but they are very willing and able to provide raw materials and unskilled labour.
The philosophy of a participating approach is that, when people actively participate
in implementing an action, they care for it afterwards. But if they are given without an active
involvement, the project is doom to fail at post-project level. They will levy consumers a token
maintenance fee in order to pay for repairs of broken pipes, tap replacements and the payment of
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an allowance to the caretakers. Where a project is owned by a community, we ensure that they
learn to manage it from identification, implementation and to its sustainability.
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
The strengthening of ecosystems and conservation of biodiversity forms an
important strategy of this organisation. Without forests, there will not be an environmental
equilibrium. Man needs forest for economic exploitation, fuel-wood, plantation agriculture and for
food including non-timber products. Forests and other biomes (ecosystems) are also habitats for
animals that are used as food by man. We are particularly interested at conserving the rainforest
and tropical forests within the sub tropical region.
Forests are being exploited with very little replacement, although several
conventions are being signed to protect tree species and animals at international levels. Indigenous
people hardly feel the impact of this aid sent to the affected regions. Indigenous people in most
instances are always excluded in committees discussing issues that affect them. This makes the plan
look somewhat a white elephant because of social exclusion. We want equal representation in
committees including affected people to actively decide and or explain to decision makers to better
understand the implications of making such decisions. When people are highly restricted from using
what they have as a source of livelihoods, the end result is catastrophic. Displaced people hardly
make a new living easily and many live in frustration for the rest of their lives. CREDEV address
these issues through advocacy for the respect of the rights of indigenous people.
We design programmes including agro-forestry, afforestation and reforestation to
protect ecosystems and the livelihoods of indigenous people. We encourage people to create
community forests either for fuel wood, catchment basin protection or the conservation of natural
resources including canes (canalus spp) used for craftworks. All these are done within the
international environmental frameworks that benefit the poor with assistance from donors including
the IUCN. We promote agro-forestry for several reasons including the growing of organic foods and
the establishment of an agro-ecology. Fast-growing trees are used for organic agriculture, since they
provide green-manure to grow crops. These species are nitrogen –fixing, while others are purposely
to provide fuel-wood. Chemical fertilizers are too expensive to be bought by vulnerable people and
as such, the use of organic fertilizers reduces input costs. They are cheap and affordable to poor
people and what they need are seeds and training of its use.
The philosophy of a participatory approach is the ownership of the resources. If the
project benefits you, then an active participation must be made so that you enjoy the end result.
Most economies are built on the exploitation of natural resources, Cameroon being one. Its
exploitation and conservation is very important. Her natural forests cut across several boundaries
along West and Central Africa, whose protection is of paramount interest to this organisation.
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