21 January 2021
Policy Paper:
What Cameroon's development partners in-country could do, to help mitigate drivers of the country's Anglophone crisis
Dear Reader:
We are pleased to present to you a Policy Paper released on 21 January 2021, entitled “What Cameroon's development partners in-country could do, to help mitigate drivers of the country's Anglophone crisis”.
Focussing on development partners with an operational presence and programmatic capacity in-country, the Paper is intended to be a practical document, and recommends specific areas for policy dialogue and programmatic, sectoral interventions – considering the crisis’ underlying drivers, which lie in the country’s unique history and socio-linguistic features. The Policy Paper’s core aim is to generate discussion within the development partner community in Cameroon on conflict-sensitive approaches and appropriate policy tools, for sector-based development programming in an officially multilingual State, notably in sectors which manifest tensions between language systems.
The Paper explores four (4) globally recognized conflict-mitigation approaches, and their accompanying domains of technical expertise, frequently resorted to in States with such diversity: (i) Language policy and planning in officially multilingual States; (ii) Bijuralism, pluri-juralism, and management of mixed legal systems; (iii) Language-in-Education policy planning for multilingual States, and (iv) Devolution and sub-national governance in States with territorially and non-territorially diverse socio-demographic features (integration versus accommodation). The Policy Paper includes strategy considerations for embarking on policy dialogue in this challenging area, and recommends some interventions towards mitigation of, and response to the humanitarian and human rights consequences of the crisis.
Author: Constitutional Options Project