The objective is to improve the resilience of rural youth to the COVID19 pandemic through the provision of financial support, the transmission of relevant information and exposure to innovative technologies adapted to the Cameroonian farming environment and to explore the potential of ICT tools for agriculture.

The project was implemented between September 2020 and March 2021 with financial support from the international NGO Procasur and substantial support from the Cameroonian Forum for Agricultural Advisory Services (YPARD Cameroon’s host institution).

The design of the communication tools has enabled more than 20,000 young agripreneurs to be reached directly through the online platforms. The latter benefited from awareness-raising messages on the pandemic and updates on the general evolution of the disease worldwide.

Three training sessions were organised on the introduction to agribusiness and plant propagation techniques. This reached more than 15 young people on the site, but with an actual online impact of more than 1,000 people logging on to the Direct Training.

The competition launched online as a Community Reporter had a positive impact on the competitiveness of agriculture. In total, a dozen candidates were highly rated by the public. However, only the five best recovery ideas were funded after the public vote.

Lessons learned included the following:

– Young people are already self-adjusting to the pandemic

– Financing youth projects remains a real problem

– Youth support mechanisms must successfully prioritise the provision of in-kind

grants in kind.

– The pandemic has had a real negative impact on agro-pastoral activities in general and those of young people in particular.

In view of this experimental phase of the project, it would be desirable, in the interests of sustainability, to resize the project so that its action can reach other areas that we have identified as vulnerable to the pandemic. 

Meet Cameroon’s community reporters here.