General Description

The Constitutional Options Project is honoured to present the Cameroon Anglophone Crisis: Peace Policy Paper Series, which marks the culmination of a 5-year Project (2017-2022), whose objective is to attenuate conflict in Cameroon’s historically Anglophone North-West and South-West regions. Placed under the emblem of the grand African baobab tree (the Palaver Tree or Arbre à Palabre), a traditional problem-solving venue, the Project is rooted in the conviction that such conflicts can be resolved through innovative techniques to accommodate linguistic, cultural, and related diversity. The five (5) Policy Papers cover the following themes:

• Managing dual Official Languages
• Legal System and National Bijuralism
• Managing dual Education Sub-systems
• Asymmetrical Devolution: Competencies, Governance,
  and Autonomy of Special Status Regions
• Pathways to a Peace Process

The Peace Policy Papers are the work of a team of Cameroonian specialists in the fields of peace and security, resolution of political conflicts, comparative constitutional design, and comparative political systems. Prior to their publication, the Papers were read and commented upon by additional Cameroonian specialists in the fields of (1) official languages and bilingualism, (2) bi-juralism and mixed legal systems, (3) comparative education systems, (4) devolution and multi-level governance, and (5) by peace and social justice advocates.

Each Policy Paper is accompanied by an Information Note, which provides a succinct summary of the Paper’s thrust. The Project Team has also made available an over 600-item, largely hyper-linked Bibliography, which highlights the material it drew upon during its research. It has also made available an 83-item Select Annotated Bibliography, which presents summaries of some of the best literature available, on how to address such conflicts. The Policy Papers and all associated materials are freely available to the public online, in both official languages: English and French.

The Project expresses its profound appreciation to the African constitutionalists, peace processes, conflict resolution, and human rights experts whose ideas, resourcefulness, and funding, made the Project possible. It is our hope that these knowledge products will contribute to building peace from the embers of the current crisis. A common message runs through these Peace Policy Papers: that while social turmoil, tensions, and conflict do occur in countries with marked linguistico-cultural diversity along those fault-lines (examples are South Africa, Belgium, Canada) such conflicts can be prevented and mitigated. Far from a curse, diversity can become a national asset.