Development assistance approaches in Cameroon: a comparison of the heavily indebted poor countries initiative and China’s white paper on foreign aid

• Main Author: Mariane, Kenfack Sonkeng
• Other Authors: Lenaghan, P
• Language: en
• Published: University of the Western Cape 2015
• Subjects: Cameroon; China’s White Paper on Foreign Aid; Development Assistance Approaches; Economic Development; Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative; International Monetary Fund (IMF); Poverty Reduction; World Bank
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11394/4278

Magister Legum - LLM === This research acknowledges that although literature abounds on development assistance in general, not much has been published yet on Cameroon specifically. Therefore, this mini-thesis seeks to contribute to fill this gap. Moreover, it aims to examine both development assistance legislative frameworks in Cameroon and above all to compare them in order to find out which development assistance approach is the most aligned in terms of international obligations relative to human rights and economic development. The IMF-World Bank’s Comprehensive Approach to debt Reduction, (the HIPC Initiative), and China’s White Paper on Foreign Aid have been specifically chosen for this research for two main reasons: first, these two international instruments are significantly impacting upon and reshaping Cameroon’s political, social and economic development architecture since Cameroon economic crisis exists till today; and secondly, to enlighten the public, academicians, policy makers, on development assistance in Cameroon given that legal sources on the topic exist but mostly unpublished and inaccessible Therefore this research will be restricted to the period from Cameroon’s economic crisis in 1980 up to 2014. Given the limited availability of primary legal sources at both the international and domestic levels, this research will primarily look at HIPC Initiative Agreement and the Chinese White Paper on Foreign Aid. Moreover, this study will be conducted in form of the available HIPC documents and reports on Cameroon regularly published by the staff of IMF and the World Bank and specifically the HIPC Decision Point Document and the HIPC Completion Point Document of Cameroon. In addition, this study will rely on primary legal sources relative to states international obligations regarding human rights and economic cooperation such as, the UDHR (10 December 1948), the ICCPR (16 December 1966), the ICESCR (16 December 1966) and the Declaration on the Right to Development (4 December 1986). In the case of China’s development assistance approach, given that neither China nor Cameroon release specific bilateral treaties or agreements related to their development co-operation and the fact that documents and publications relative to Cameroon’s development assistance are mostly unpublished and inaccessible, this study will principally focus on the Chinese White Paper on Foreign Aid. It will also look, amongst others, at the Beijing Declaration of the FOCAC (2004), the White Paper on China-Africa Economic and Trade Co-operation (August 2013). Moreover this research will be complemented through secondary sources such as books, journals articles, report, working papers, press reviews, drafts, deliberation of international conferences and international summits, and internet sources