Cameroon seeks 163 million usd to digitise local councils

Cameroon is taking the next step in its administrative modernisation drive. Authorities in Yaoundé are looking for 163 million usd — roughly 90 billion CFA francs at current exchange rates — to finance the digitalisation of decentralised local governments (CTDs). The plan aims to equip the country’s more than 360 communes and ten regions with digital tools that will streamline the management of local public services.

A strategic funding for Cameroon’s decentralisation

This funding need comes in the wake of the 2019 General Code for Decentralised Territorial Governments, a landmark text that reshaped the architecture of local governance. Since that code came into force, the transfer of powers to communes and regions has accelerated, though technical capabilities have not always kept pace. Digitalisation is seen as the lever to close this gap between expanded responsibilities and still-uneven operational capacities.

In concrete terms, the funds sought will cover the deployment of administrative management platforms, digitisation of civil registry records, computerisation of revenue collection services, and connection of municipal executives to central government information systems. For local authorities that often struggle with low tax collection rates, the fiscal stakes are high: better revenue collection through digital means is key to the financial autonomy that decentralisation promises.

Funding raises questions over digital sovereignty

The choice of technical and financial partners will be telling. Over recent years, Cameroon has worked with multilateral donors such as the World Bank, the African Development Bank, and the French Development Agency on e-governance projects. At the same time, Beijing has become a major provider of telecom infrastructure, notably through the national backbone deployed in partnership with Huawei.

For a project that touches on citizen data and the local administrative chain, the question of sovereign hosting is pressing. Cameroon enacted a legal framework for cybersecurity and data protection in 2010, but its operational implementation still has room for improvement. The digitalisation of local governments will require a choice between locally hosted solutions, foreign cloud services, or hybrid architectures — each option carrying its own implications for cost, resilience, and control.

The regional context offers useful comparisons. Rwanda has turned Irembo into a showcase for digitising public services down to the sector level. Senegal has pursued a similar strategy through its General Delegation for Digital Transformation. Benin, meanwhile, has launched a one-stop shop for administrative formalities that is inspiring several neighbours in Central Africa.

Operational challenges beyond the funding

Securing 163 million usd alone will not guarantee the project’s success. The digital divide remains pronounced in Cameroon, with rural areas still poorly served by fibre-optic and 4G coverage. The Telecommunications Regulatory Agency (ART) and the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications will need to coordinate the roll-out of municipal digital services with the expansion of connectivity infrastructure, or else risk widening inequalities between cities and the hinterland.

Training local government staff is another blind spot in the transformation. Without personnel skilled in using the tools, performing basic maintenance, and understanding elementary cybersecurity, material investments may yield limited results. Several technical partners now insist on coupling equipment projects with multi-year capacity-building components.

Then there is the question of timing. So far, the Cameroonian government has not publicly released a detailed schedule for mobilising the funds or a definitive list of donors being approached. The actual pace of the project will determine the credibility of a decentralisation drive that officials have presented as a major pillar of state modernisation.