It is the result of an exciting and participatory process, fueled by the determination of Cameroon’s civil society players to set up a framework favorable to the promotion of agroecology with a view to food sovereignty, the protection of biodiversity and the fight against climate change.
The constitutive general assembly of the Réseau de Promotion de l’Agroécologie au Cameroun (REPAC) was held in Yaoundé on November 14. Prior to the constitution of the management team, the charter of the network for the promotion of agroecology, drawn up in a participatory manner, was validated by all the organizations represented in the meeting room of the Tou’Ngou hotel. It was exactly 12:30 when the members of the network’s first bureau and executive body were appointed by consensus by some twenty civil society organizations duly registered as founding members of REPAC. The board is chaired by Green Development Advocates (GDA) and vice-chaired by Environment and Rural Development Foundation (ERuDeF). The technical secretariat, which is the network’s executive body, is headed by the Service d’Appui aux Initiatives Locales de Développement (SAILD).
Path
It should be recalled that this process began in 2022 with reflections on agroecology in Cameroon. Under the facilitation of SAILD, civil society actors involved in promoting agroecology drew up a strategy for scaling up agroecology in Cameroon. “During the development of the strategy, we asked ourselves how it could be effectively implemented once completed. This gave rise to the idea of creating a network to promote agroecology in Cameroon”, says Kizito Sone, assistant to the project entitled Scaling up agroecology to strengthen food security and improve food diversity in the Congo Basin. This project, implemented by SAILD with financial support from the Full Circle Foundation, provided the framework for the process that led to the creation of REPAC.
At the close of REPAC’s first general meeting, the firm resolution to meet again in early 2024 to draw up an annual action plan was endorsed by all network members.
Rodrigue.kouang@saild.org
