Make planning a guarantee of political stability, the engine of economic growth and a source of pride and equality for all citizens

For too long, development gaps between urban and rural areas in general, the lack of appropriate amenities and facilities in border regions in particular, coupled with the lack of a clear and precise land policy, eventually created a sense of marginalisation among a large segment of the population and considerably slowed Cameroon’s economic activity.
On the one hand, the public policies carried out so far have led to a weak integration of certain regions within the Nation. This translates into a low level of participation in national life, a sense of being exploited by others, and under-representation among the country’s elites. As a result, there has been a sharp rise in ethno-regional divides and feelings of frustration that have only been exacerbated over time, fuelled by an abdication of the State of its responsibilities during the long economic crisis the country went through, but also by inadequate responses when the administration tried to tackle the problem.
On the other hand, everyone can measure the increasingly striking contrast between urban and rural areas, but also the widening gap between neglected populations and urban elites more or less connected to globalisation.
Finally, economic operators do not dare to invest in agriculture or industry because access to land ownership is uncertain and risky: all too often, there is a very large number of land-related conflicts that involve overlaying or issuing multiple land titles on the same parcel or overlapping parcels of land. We consider that an appropriate land status taking into account the cultural realities of our lands but guaranteeing the State the necessary land resource for the realisation of collective projects and providing the necessary security on the land transactions market is a precondition for the development and to the modernisation of our country.

Settle the land question

• We will organise a major national debate on regional planning leading to a National Charter for Territorial Development.
• We will organise the National Land Forum with full involvement of the traditional authorities in order to redefine the best ways of access to land in respect of the interests of the customary communities, both for infra structure and other public works and for the development of the land Agriculture.
• We will draw up a National Framework for Territory Development (NFTD) which will then be broken down into regional (or federated) master plans.
• We will define a land use plan that will specify agricultural areas, industrial zones, nature reserves, corridors for railways, roads and highways, and residential areas.
• Finally, we will apply all the provisions agreed upon in a land tenure law.

Establish a real land-use planning policy

• We will define a real land-use planning policy at the national level by reconciling economic competitiveness and job creation.
• We will value local potentials and take advantage of regional potentialities while putting an end to the harmful competition between Douala, Kribi and Limbe with regard to port activities.
• We will pursue a rural planning policy focused on the structuring of rural areas and the empowerment of rural populations.

Proceed with a digital land register of all the plots for a securing of the property

• We will carry out a computerised and highly secure land register, the registration of all residential land in urban and rural areas as well as all parcels incorporated in the private domain of the State or under local (or federated) authorities.
• We will review land policy with a view to reducing land speculation. In this perspective, we will put in place a policy of concession of urban land development to private operators for a production of fully serviced plots. The marketing of these lands will therefore be under their control.
• We will strengthen MAETUR’s missions in the constitution and management of land reserves necessary for the development of cities and municipalities.
• We will lower the property tax on developed and undeveloped land and this tax will be better collected.

Pursuing an imaginative and ambitious urban policy

• We consider urban growth as objective and potential for accelerating the development of our country.
• Our urban policy will have as central pillar the direction of urban growth towards secondary cities, so as to curb the urban growth of Douala and Yaoundé.
• We will give secondary cities the means to absorb the significant urban growth that the country faces. This will aim to create and maintain in the secondary cities more harmonious living conditions, but also economic incentives for the creation of wealth and jobs.

Assign a particular function to urban entities

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• We will create a big NEW CITY, CITY OF THE FUTURE in the centre of the country at the southern limit of Adamawa and the north of Mbam-et-Kim, in a very sparsely populated area. This new city, a place of innovation par excellence, will be a city of the future, the place where Cameroon will discover talents and our projection towards the technological future. It will be located on the axis of the railway linking the South to the North of the country and will be connected to other major cities of the country as Douala or Yaoundé by highways.
• Reconvert Douala and shift most of the port activities to Kribi. The port of Douala will be transformed into a marina and a small cabotage port. We will especially make Douala the financial and business capital, the Manhattan of Central Africa. The Jos Plateau will become the epicentre of this financial capital which will have to drain the capital, especially the stock market, for the reconstruction of Cameroon.

• The Douala airport will be maintained as an airport in its current capacity, developed, but which will not grow any more.
• The Douala industries will be gradually moved to Edéa, making way for warehouses that can be converted into logistic centres or incubation centres for companies in the new financial, digital and biotechnological economy that will develop in Douala. Edéa will become the main industrial platform of southern Cameroon to which will be transferred the industries of Douala.
• Yaoundé will keep its status as a political capital and will truly become the cultural capital. As such, we will build therein a large library of the black world and the African diaspora, a world-class opera and a national academy of arts and culture.
• A second industrial platform will be built between the CITY OF FUTURE and Ngaoundéré which will become the main industrial platform in the northern Cameroon. Ngaoundere will therefore be the crossroads from which Cameroonian products will go to the North and Chad, to the East and to the Central African Republic, to the West in Nigeria.
• A third industrial platform will be developed in the agricultural basin between Foumbot, Bafoussam and Bamenda.
• Regional (or federated) capitals will become balancing metropolises. We will transform these cities into real application points of the decentralisation policy of the administration, but also of sectors like the university or the industry and the services.
• Alongside the three national cities and balancing metropolises, medium-sized cities will have a key role in absorbing urban growth, but above all interfacing with the rural world.
• We will put in place a Special Programme for the Development of Border Cities (SPDBC) (such as Kousseri, Eyumedjock, Kié-Osi, Amchidé, Garoua Boulaï, etc.) and we will connect them to the regional capitals. As part of our policy of cooperation with neighbouring countries, we will participate in the construction of transnational routes to promote the dynamics of opening to the outside world.

Collect and treat wastewater and household waste

• Cleanse our cities by a better treatment of waste by replacing the current policy of pickup without treatment by a logic of circular economy namely: – Municipalities must train Cameroonian households to sort garbage before disposing of them. This will separate biodegradable items, non-biodegradable products (glass, plastic, aluminium, steel, paper). – Set up in our municipalities small sorting units of non-biodegradable products and their classification according to their destinations to the recycling units. – Biodegradable waste can be treated in a composting unit (such as the one in Dschang) to produce organic fertilisers, biogas and electricity. – Financing can be ensured by the recovery of some 30 billion paid annually for the collection of urban garbage.

• We will set up a sewage network in the main cities for the collection of all wastewater. These will be treated in treatment basins before being discharged into watercourses. To do this, we will equip each major city with modern wastewater treatment plants whose sludge resulting from water treatment will be valued either as compost for farmers or as fuel for households and businesses.
• In the countryside, the use of mini-water treatment plants will be mandatory where the dispersed habitat does not allow the collection of water via a sewage network.
• Municipalities with a sufficient population density will have to set up a sewage network and small
  wastewater treatment plants for the collection and treatment of wastewater.
• We will introduce the polluter pays principle for cleanliness and waste collection in our cities. All consumer goods delivered in non-degradable packaging will be subject to a recycling fee. Part of this tax will be returned to the consumer if the consumer brings the non-degradable packaging back to an appropriate collection point.
• Solid industrial waste will be the subject of an increased regulation based on the obligation of industrial actors and hospital actors for specialized collection and treatment (sorting, recycling for material recovery, or incineration with a view to recovery energy).
• The collection and treatment of liquid industrial waste will be intensively controlled to prevent the spread of substances harmful to human health, fauna and flora in the environment.