(Business in Cameroon) – Cameroon will launch its National Financial Sector Development Strategy (NFSD) on May 31, 2024. This initiative, announced by Finance Minister Louis Paul Motaze, aims to bolster economic growth and improve living standards by enhancing the financial sector’s role in the economy.
The strategy, developed with support from the World Bank and the European Union, will be implemented from 2024 to 2030. It aims to transform Cameroon into a financial hub capable of supporting structural economic changes. Specifically, the NFSD seeks to increase the financial sector’s contribution to economic growth, raise living standards, and promote entrepreneurship.
According to the National Economic and Financial Committee (CNEF), even in the least favorable scenario, the NFSD could boost annual growth by an additional 2.3%. This increase is expected to generate an extra 105 billion CFA francs in annual revenue, totaling 630 billion CFA francs from 2025 to 2030.
The strategy’s initiators describe it as a “game-changer” for economic growth. If successful, it could put Cameroon back on the path to becoming an upper-middle-income country. The National Development Strategy (SND30), launched in July 2020, aims for an average growth rate of 8% between 2020 and 2030. However, GDP growth is projected at 4.3% in 2024, with less than 4% in 2023, after 3.4% in 2022, 3.6% in 2021, and 0.5% in 2020. An additional 2.3% annual growth could help achieve the 8% target.
The NFSD outlines actions in six strategic areas: enhancing the trust, stability, and resilience of financial institutions; improving financial infrastructure; bettering the regulatory framework and fostering competition; increasing financial inclusion and access to credit for micro, small, and medium enterprises; strengthening public financial institutions; and supporting long-term, green, and sustainable financing.
Specific measures include restructuring the microfinance sector, establishing a national deposit guarantee system for microfinance, studying the feasibility of introducing competition in the digital infrastructure managed by public telecom operator Camtel, launching a credit information bureau, creating a financial sector practices observatory, and setting up a training center for financial sector professionals.
The NFSD will be governed through a partnership-based approach to ensure effectiveness, says the CNEF. A technical steering committee, coordinated by the CNEF’s general secretariat at the Bank of Central African States (Beac), will oversee implementation and monitoring. Six working groups will focus on each strategic area, all overseen by a steering committee chaired by the Finance Minister. Evaluations are scheduled for 2027 and 2030.
The NFSD aims to address weaknesses identified in a 2022 diagnostic analysis, such as the sector’s lack of depth, limited access to financing for micro and SMEs, inadequate long-term financing, regulatory shortcomings, and weak financial innovation
