The Entrepreneur - Cameroon's Premier Economic & Business Journal

The WTO has Failed Developing Nations

Ten years after the adoption of the Doha Declaration, the "development" round of trade negotiations has merely offered empty promises. In this short op-ed, Aurelie Walker of the Fairtrade Foundation sums up ten ways in which the WTO membership has failed the world's poor. Overtly biased "trade-related issues" such as rich-country subsidies and the ambiguity of trade rules, have been ignored or intensified by the powerful countries. Furthermore, specifically "pro-development" policies such as special treatment and improved access to vital medicines have been deliberately neglected. Even if international trade could indeed be part of an effort to combat poverty, a model of trade that is based on global competitiveness instead of cooperation is certain to fail, Walker argues...More

“My music hunts change” - Akere-Maimo, multi-talented artist, communicator

The first thing an Akere-Maimo aide would tell you is that they enjoy the soft-spoken nature of the young communicator. Others have described him as a gentleman who is intimately attached to whatever job he is doing. His glittering smile quickly attracts attention, but his intellectual strength puts this lover of arts on the rails of the communication profession Akere has chosen. Even at the Yaounde-based Malaria Consortium-Cameroon Coalition Against Malaria (MC-CCAM) organization where he is Advocacy and Communication Officer, colleagues would confirm Akere breeds ingenuity. Yet, fewer know the Health Communication specialist is a talented singer, who is soon emerging with a maiden album. He can occasionally be caught at a Yaounde Monte Juvence recording studio packaging what will be an explosive LB in the coming months. TIPTOPSTARS’ editor Ernest Kanjo strolled into Akere’s career to find out more about his project. The chat with the Sacred Heart College Mankon SHC old boy was exciting...More

The War on Terror is a Fraud

A decade of war started, and both fueled & fought by the same corporate-financier interests.

By Tony Cartalucci

From the beginning, even for those wanting to believe the fairy tale that 9/11 was carried out by cave dwellers carrying box cutters directed by Osama Bin Laden, who by all accounts was dying or already dead from kidney failure in 2001 - "unfortunate blunders" in US foreign policy can still be blamed for the creation and perpetuation of the ubiquitous, unceasing terror organization known as Al Qaeda. However, in light of recent events in Libya, Syria, Iran, and Algeria, there is exposed a truth, many have known for over 10 years, and many more are catching onto now - that the "War on Terror" is an absolute fraud, started, fueled and simultaneously fought against by the same handful of corporate-financier interests for the sole purpose of spreading Wall Street and London's hegemony across the globe.

If Bush, Obama, and Perry are not making decisions, who is? Who are the chief proponents of this "War on Terror," who are the architects behind the policy and who is bankrolling them? More importantly, how can they have spent the last 10 years sending American kids to fight Al Qaeda and now are overtly handing them the nation of Libya?

President Paul Biya of Cameroon appoints new cabinet

President Paul Biya of Cameroon appointed new ministers after his reelection in the October 9, 2011 presidential election. Mr Philemon Yang was unexpectedly retained as Prime Minister and Head of Government after Mr Biya received less than fifty percent of votes in his home region. The new cabinet is the 34th in Mr Biya's 29-year rule. The new government has 37 ministries, up from 35. The two newly created ministries are: the Ministry of Public Contracts and the Ministry of Ex-servicemen and War Veterans. The Complete list of Ministers and their deputies is as follows:

Buying Cheap Isn't Always Best for Development

Public procurement is often portrayed as a technical, accounting issue instead of as a source of revenue for local industries and government. It can also be a tool for development, says lecturer Michael Jennings. In numerous cases, donors have pressured African countries into making public tenders open to international competition. Donors, argues Jennings, have either self-interested reasons, such as the protection of their own national "strategic" industries, or humanitarian ones, insisting, for instance, that cheaper foreign mosquito nets are preferable over more expensive locally produced mosquito nets because they can save more lives. In both cases, however, the key roles that monetary value and markets play in donor approaches to procurement obscure the further roles it can play. According to Jennings, humanitarian ends should certainly prevail, but approaches to procurement must not obscure the goal of supporting African solutions for African problems...More

We Need a Third Way, Now

Globalization has often been accused of handing over power to the financial markets, depriving democracy of all substance and bringing about the current global economic instabilities. Therefore, a debate has arisen over its opposite: deglobalization. In order to face crises such as the one in Greece, Portugal or Spain, the deglobalization movement proposes to reconstitute national sovereignty. In this piece of le Monde diplomatique, Jean-Marie Harribey argues that, although globalization has brought about economic disaster, deglobalization is not the answer either. The global crisis is more than the sum of national crises and thus, no national solution will ever manage to tackle current problems. The struggle against climate change is only one of the many issues illustrating this. What is needed is a form of "alter-globalization," which, while scrutinizing globalization, does not advocate its direct opposite...More

Cameroon OIC Graduates 501 Trainees

By Stephen Njumbe Sako

The twenty-first batch of students of the Cameroon Opportunities Industrialization Centre - COIC - Buea have been called upon to be good ambassadors of the institution. The call was made on Thursday, December 8, 2011 by the Secretary General to the Governor of the Southwest Region Mr Handeson Ketong during the graduation ceremony. "Be true ambassadors of your institution and create jobs rather than remain perpetual job seekers,"he stressed. According to Mr Ketong, the COIC is very instrumental in the country as its objectives are geared towards the policy of Greater Realisation of the Head of State, President Paul Biya, which is that of creating employment and reducing poverty in a programme of actions to make Cameroon an emerging economy by 2035.

The Ten Commandments of Entrepreneurial “Suicide”

To be a successful entrepreneur, you need to be extremely passionate about your dream. Passion is what makes you persevere long enough to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Doing the right things may ensure that you fare well. What if we slip and are unable to recognize the Judases? Or we just take things for granted and drift away from reality? So, for a change lets look at the factors that will kill our dream. Hopefully if we learn to avoid these pitfalls like the pestilence then we will be on the way to an exciting business life...Ten Commandments

Capitalism vs. the Climate

The US political right has campaigned fervently and, according to polls, successfully, to frame climate change as an anti-capitalist conspiracy that will lead to economic self-destruction. The right-wing's nefarious success, notes author Naomi Klein, is ultimately not based on the exploitation of feigned scientific disagreement, but on the image of impending economic doom. The populist strategy's success contains the unintended, yet valuable, lesson that climate change is not really about nature in the first place. It is rather about "the central fiction on which our economic model is based: that nature is limitless." According to Klein, "the climate movement" should now take advantage of the globally vehement questioning of capitalism. We must develop a new "civilizational paradigm" that looks beyond "green products" and market-led solutions...More

''Cameroon's Mining code is generous and friendly to foreign investors'', David Makongo

During His inaugural speech November 3rd, 2011 as, president-elect of the Republic of Cameroon on the occasion of the swearing-in ceremony before the National Assembly, President Biya placed his new seven years mandate under the banner of “major accomplishments.” The Entrepreneur NewsOnline [TENO] caught up with Dr David Makongo  President of Makongo & African Partners LLC who are Experts in Africa Mining and Oil and Gas Issues, to find out more on Cameroon's economic development strategies, especially the Mining Sector which the government expects to reap revenue to fund planned programmes:

The Entrepreneur NewsOnline [TENO]: Does this mean President Paul Biya will have to change the mining law and policy of Cameroon so in order to realize his “major accomplishments”?

David Makongo: In the1980s and 1990s most African nations reviewed their mining codes to benefit from globalization and privatization. Though Cameroon also hinted a possible review of the 1964 post-colonial mining code, this never happened till 2001. So, I will say Cameroon did not take immediate advantage of the wind of change that was blowing in Africa mining regimes so it stayed a step behind other African nations with equal mining potential.