A STRATEGIC DEVELOPMENT FINANCE APPROACH IN ALLEVIATING POVERTY IN CAMEROON

Abstract

A large funding gap looms on the horizon as the 2030 deadline for bringing an end to poverty worldwide gradually approaches. The number of poor people in the world reduced to 10% in 2015 but this number is expected to rise particularly in sub-Saharan Africa due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In Cameroon, despite experiencing sustained economic growth in the last decade, the country still suffers from chronic underdevelopment and poverty rate is high at a 37.5% estimate since 2014 particularly in rural areas due to insufficient mobilisation of development funds. The country’s weak capacity to effectively mobilise development funds have severely hindered developments efforts and the fight against poverty in Cameroon. Government programmes aimed at ameliorating and improving the living and social conditions of Cameroonians as originally intended have largely failed. This study examined Development Finance and Poverty as the core concepts and tried to establish a hypothetical relationship between development finance and poverty alleviation in Cameroon. The study was guided by the epistemology of positivism and followed the conclusive case study design. A sample of 407 participants using multi-stage sampling was drawn from the centre region of Cameroon. Questionnaire was used to collect data that was analysed using statistical packages such as SPSS 23 and AMOS 24. Hypotheses were tested using structural equation modelling. The results revealed that private domestic funds and public domestic funds both have a significant positive effect on poverty alleviation in Cameroon. The study further revealed that Public Domestic Funds has a significant positive mediating effect on the relationship between private domestic funds and poverty alleviation in Cameroon. Based on these results, the study concluded that domestic resource mobilisation is a more important source of development funds to alleviate poverty in Cameroon than external resource mobilisation. The study thus recommended a strategic development finance model for poverty alleviation in Cameroon.