United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) in Women Empowerment Strategies in Cameroon 1976 – 2015

Abstract

For the past decades, discussions on African women have witnessed steadily increasing awareness of the need to empower women through measures to increase social, economic and political equity, and broader access to fundamental human rights. The focus on women as a topic of political debate stepped into the international arena during the United Nations (UN) Decade for Women in the1970s. This led to the establishment of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) in December 1976. The vision emerged from the Voluntary Fund for the United Nations Decade for Women in the International Women’s Year (IWY) with its first director Margaret C. Snyder. This paper thus aims at assessing UNIFEM’s strategies in empowering women in Cameroon’s development sectors. The study is informed by primary and secondary data sourced during a field study in some localities (Bamenda, Ebolowa, Kye-Ossi and Douala) and some published and unpublished documents. The findings of the research revealed that UNIFEM’s actions improved on women status in various domains. This however, was not optimized due to certain setbacks. Some of the benefits included skill training, adult education and enterprise development. Ultimately, the data derived from the various sources appeared vital to our topic and enabled us to note that within the context of an expanding civil society, the need of women’s empowerment to alleviate poverty and foster community development remains crucial.