Grasping the Challenges and Conspectus of Governance and Accountability in the Extractive Industries of Cameroon

This paper provides a comprehensive governance regime for the extractive industries EI by addressing the interlocking challenges that their extraction and consumption create for the environment, security and justice. Since even though Cameroon is endowed with huge extractive resources, the EI of the country is laden with adverse social and environmental effects, weak transparency and accountability, and minimal economic benefits. As such, the first steps of the country toward good governance is to secure a political will and develop a better relationship between the various stakeholders. Despite some initiatives, the country still has a long way to go in the fight for transparency and accountability due to its closed and exclusory policy. Especially as the EI is an area that ignites expectations from the government, to manage and provide relevant information on the available resources and how they are utilised. With one of the most efficient ways of managing these expectations being to promote open, accountable and transparent governance of the EI, as well as how the revenues accrued are used. Since where openness and transparency in management is lacking, it might lead to ineffective socio economic development often referred to as a ”˜resource curse' as the unmet expectations can result in conflicts. It is for this reason that the international community has attempted to provide best practices in the form of guidelines to aid the country to put in place and implement measures that can promote open, accountable, and transparent governance of the EI. With the most common initiative being the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative EITI which is meant to promote governance and accountability in the EI. In this regard, the paper discusses how Cameroon, with its nascent EI can effectively implement the EITI standard. Since the implementation of EITI alongside, the domestic legislation governing the EI can enable it to escape the ”˜resource curse' and enhance sustainable development. Nonetheless, although the paper did not capture all the factors that have affected the management of the EI in Cameroon, particularly the political economy dimension, which can be a valuable area to research at length. It, however, provides an initial assessment of the management of the EI, based on the concept of good governance, which remains a work in progress. As the lack of transparency and accountability in extractive management can translate to a failure to engage in medium to long term development planning in the country ”“ which can also put EITI, though a good initiative, in high risk of capture. On this basis, the paper suggests changes in the incentives structure to reduce collusion and improve governance. Bande Gulbert Mbah Tarh "Grasping the Challenges and Conspectus of Governance and Accountability in the Extractive Industries of Cameroon" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-7 | Issue-2 , April 2023, URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com.com/papers/ijtsrd56240.pdf Paper URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com.com/other-scientific-research-area/other/56240/grasping-the-challenges-and-conspectus-of-governance-and-accountability-in-the-extractive-industries-of-cameroon/bande-gulbert-mbah-tarh