Policy Support Facility

Official launch of the PSF service in Cameroon for the development of a national research and innovation strategy

Cameroon will benefit from the Policy Support Facility (PSF), set up by the Secretariat of the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS), to help it develop its first national research and innovation (R&I) strategy and make the knowledge economy a vector for sustainable and inclusive development.

The Policy Support Facility (PSF) service kick-off meeting was held in hybrid mode on 13 July, at the Mont-Fébé Hotel in Yaoundé and online, in the presence of about 100 key stakeholders, senior officials from the Ministry of Scientific Research and Innovation (MINRESI) and other sectoral ministries, research institutes and universities in Cameroon, as well as from the OACPS Secretariat, and the European Union (EU) Delegation to Cameroon.

The chair of the Expert Panel in charge of this service, Professor David Simo, recalled the stakes of this R&I strategy, identified as one of the pillars of the transformation of Cameroon, which aims to be an emerging country by 2035 (National Development Strategy 2020-2030 and “Vision 2025”). Aligned with the United Nations Agenda 2030, the Agenda 2063 and the Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy for Africa 2024 of the African Union, this strategy aims to increase the performance of research and innovation in priority areas of development, bring research closer to the business world to better exploit its results, and put in place effective mechanisms for detecting and financing innovative projects (promotion of business incubators, support for startups, etc.).

 

(Previous meeting of the PSF team at Cameroon’s Ministry of Higher Education-MINESUP)

Speaking on behalf of Dr. Ibrahim Norbert Richard, Assistant Secretary-General of the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OEACP), Ms. Aya Kasasa (Expert on Culture-Migration-Urbanisation-Demography) emphasised the extent to which, since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, “research and innovation are essential to finding solutions to the major challenges of our time (…). This pandemic has also shown that significant changes can happen very quickly when science and policy work together. For this, we need effective R&I strategies to inform the changes taking place and to guide the actions of policymakers. We also need robust and efficient research and innovation ecosystems that produce useful and exploitable knowledge, add value to research results and better meet the needs of our societies.

(Ms. Aya Kasasa, OACPS Secretariat)

Agreeing in this sense, Mr. Philippe Van Damme, Ambassador/Head of Delegation of the European Union in Cameroon, highlighted the additional means and expertise that will be provided through this service to MINRESI to achieve synergy and collaboration between the various actors of R&I, “one of the major challenges in Cameroon, as elsewhere”. In particular, “an exhaustive mapping of centres of excellence in research, a diagnosis of the challenges and constraints of implementing an R&I policy, the networking of research centres, and the organisation of indispensable regional and international partnerships“.

Closing the official ceremony for the launch of the PSF service in Cameroon, Ms. Madeleine Tchuinte, Cameroon’s Minister of Scientific Research and Innovation, urged the experts to give an essentially practical scope to their recommendations, “in terms of effectively transforming the results of research into a mechanism for employability, a tool for wealth creation, a lever for sustainable development and finally an instrument for the blossoming of our populations“, reflecting both the complexity of Cameroon’s reality and the country’s sub-regional vocation. 

(Previous meeting of the PSF team at Cameroon’s  Ministry of Scientific Research and Innovation- MINRESI)

Officially launched today, this service is the sixth one of the Policy Support Facility (PSF) (after Lesotho, Mauritania, The Gambia, Timor-Leste and Kenya), launched in January 2021, by the  EU-funded OACPS Research and Innovation Programme, to enhance the quality and efficiency of R&I policy systems.

For more information on this PSF service, please download:

Factsheet of the PSF service in Cameroun

Presentation of the members of the Expert Panel

Please also visit the webpage of the PSF service in Cameroon

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