Cameroon Mangrove Forest Ecosystem: Ecological and Environmental Dimensions

This study examined the ecological effects of local scale mangrove exploitation through surveys, empirical field experiments, modeling and questionnaires. The ecosystem “health” was assessed by parameterising a mass-balance model (ECOPATH with ECOSIM). The results suggest that forest exploitation affects mangrove forest structure and two-third of the canopy gaps were caused by human activities. Regeneration was affected, and more seedlings were recorded in canopy gaps compared to closed canopy areas. A total of 1358 crabs were collected to assess it population structure, 770 females (56.7%) and 588 males (43.3%), belonging to 13 species. The family Sesarmidae contains 5 species (38.5%), while Grapsidae 2 species (30.8%), Ocypodidae 1 species (15.4%) and to each of the families Portunidae and Gecarcinidae (7.7% each). Uca tangeri (Ocypodidae) and Goniopsis pelii (Grapsidae) were the two dominant species, constituting 44.1 and 21.9%, respectively, of the total sampled crabs. Propagules predation was a major source of mortality for mangrove. An average of 65.9% of the propagules was predated and most were found to be non-viable. The Ecopath analysis suggests that the Cameroon mangrove ecosystem is relatively healthy and moderately mature. This analysis allowed a reasonable model representation of the Cameroon mangrove system, as the model viability was determined by using the sensitive analysis function

Military Security Issues (MSIs) and the Challenge of Internal Security Operations (ISOPs) in Nigeria

The Nigerian state over time have witnessed an increasing novel security issues that make the calls for military involvement on existing and emerging non-traditional security issues through Internal Security Operations (ISOPs) inevitable as these issues continues to metamorphosed revealing their high level belligerencies continually.In view of the aforementioned issues and many others, this paper adopts the empirical qualitative method to underscores Nigeria’s military security issues (MSIs) and the challenge of internal security operations (ISOPs) in establishing a clear understanding of existing military security issues, causes, challenges and implications of military involvement in internal security operations (ISOPs).The overarching theme of our findings would be that the Nigeria’s peculiar historical experience and security reality is that which has compelled military involvement in ISOPs and these issues fall within the theoretic spectacle of non-traditional security issues unlike the developed countries where their military security issues are still within the scope of traditional security issues. Also, the increasing novel security issues are dis-enabling militarism in many third world countries but the political, economic, socio-cultural, human and environmental cost of not involving the military into ISOPs is disastrous to national security and proper functioning of such countries experiencing hydra like security issues.This paper concludes that the fluid and ever changing nature of contemporary security issues especially with the increasing intra-state violence and the dwindling of inter-state violence, we will be witnessing continued and increasing military involvement in ISOPs inevitably in many countries and the need for professionalism in such military involvement cannot be overemphasized. Keywords: Issues, Internal Security, Military Security Issues (MSIs), Internal Security operations (ISOPs), Nigeria

Discourses of positionality and the challenges of democratization in the global south: The case of Nepal and Cameroon

In this article, we argue that to conceptually and empirically grasp the dynamics and challenges of processes of civic participation, i.e., the deliberation and empowerment of disenfranchised and marginalized populations in the Global South, communication for social change scholars need to pay more attention to three issues: the quality of citizens’ self-perceptions in relation to their local milieu, inter-citizen perceptions and relations at the local level and lastly, the attendant consequences of these on citizens’ sense of efficacy. To grasp and comprehend the interplay of these three issues, we propose the adoption of Floya Anthias’ concept of narratives of location and positionality and demonstrate the heuristic vitality of this notion through a discussion of some local discourses of positionality in Nepal and Cameroon

Réflexions sur la crise actuelle de l’économie camerounaise liée au COVID-19

The objective of this reflection is to assess the effects of the current crisis on the Cameroonian economy faced with five shocks : (i) an epidemiological shock, (ii) a supply shock (iii) an internal demand shock, (iv) an oil shock, (v) a foreign demand shock. The joint occurrence of these shocks could cost 6 % of GDP in 2020, with a doubling of the budget deficit and private investment which will not recover to its pre-crisis level before the end of 2021. In order to mitigate the effects In view of this recession, it is important for the government, in order to maintain demand at a certain level, to support companies, particularly industrial ones, so that they can maintain a certain level of employment and withstand the crisis. It will require an increase in public debt, the burden of which can be reduced by a purchase of government securities by the central bank. This is the prerequisite for a major economic rebound in 2021-2022. For the latter to materialize, the phenomenon of credit rationing (amplified in period of crisis) could be mitigated by adopting a dynamic bank’s provisioning method for non performing loans and by the effective application of the countercyclical capital buffer

Estimation des élasticités du commerce extérieur dans des économies en développement riches en ressources naturelles : le cas des pays de la CEMAC

The objective of this paper is to estimate price and demand trade elasticities of Economic and Monetary Community of Central African States (CEMAC). This work is done in a context where these countries, heavily dependents of natural resource rent, are facing a crisis due to the 2014 oil shock. This external shock and its consequences on the external equilibrium on CEMAC countries has revived the debate on the parity of CFA Franc and its economic consequences. By using Bayesian VAR and Bayesian panel regression techniques on annual data from 1986 to 2016, we found that foreign trade is relatively inelastic to prices and non-natural resources revenues in Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Chad. Especially, Marshall-Lerner conditions seems not hold in CEMAC. These results suggest that devaluation should not be appropriate in order to rebalance the external trade of CEMAC countries. Also, imports are heavily inelastic of domestic demand from non-natural resource sector, which illustrates its strategic importance for these economies and the lack of industrial diversification of CEMAC countrie

Contributions relatives des chocs de demande agrégée et d’offre agrégée aux fluctuations de la croissance réelle en zone CEMAC

The objective of this paper is to determine the relative importance of aggregate demand and aggregate supply shocks to fluctuations of real growth in CEMAC. The factual analysis of growth in the subregion over the last 20 years shows a dependence on oil prices whose e!ects on growth are channeled by fiscal policy. As a result, supply shocks can displace the demand curve. This facts justifies our original econometric approach, which subdivides each shock into two types : idiosyncratic shocks and common shocks, and builds on Pedroni’s panel SVAR analysis framework (2013), to which we add the proposed identification conditions by Cover, Enders and Hueng (2006). These take into account the possibility of a correlation between aggregate supply shocks and aggregate demand shocks. Three main results are obtained. First of all, aggregate supply and aggregate demand shocks have the same influence on growth in the short and medium term. This shows the existence of a certain flexibility in the scope of the monetary authorities. Moreover, shocks a!ecting all CEMAC economies (common shocks) are almost non-existent. Finally, the correlations of supply and demand shocks are non-zero and invalidate the identification conditions of Blanchard and Quah (1989)

External constraint and procyclicality of monetary policy of the Bank of Central African States (BEAC)

Monetary policies are known as procyclical in developing countries. For instance, there exists a consensus on the main factors of this monetary policy procyclicality: (i) procyclicality of capital flows in emerging markets, and (ii) weak institutional framework in Sub-Saharan African countries. However, hard peg regime requirements (in terms of FX reserves level to possess) and the importance of terms of trade shocks in Franc Zone countries prompts us to reconsider this debate and to explore other factors, especially for central African countries. In this paper, we analyse the important role of external constraint (FX reserves to imports ratio, the de facto nominal anchor) in the BEAC’s monetary policy procyclicality. Using a general equilibrium model with some structural features of central African economies, we demonstrate that: (i) a monetary shock has a more volatile effects on real variables in the current monetary policy framework than in an Inflation Targeting (IT) regime, (ii) the current monetary policy framework in Central Africa suggest a monetary tightening following a negative macroeconomic shock, and (iii) the delayed restrictive reaction of central bank following a negative oil shock induce additional macroeconomic costs. This results suggest: (i) to include the question of monetary policy procyclicality in the agenda of monetary reforms, and (ii) to consider the possibility of another nominal anchor for BEAC’s monetary policy which combines the monetary policy’s countercyclicality and the possibility to defend the currency

Les prévisions conditionnelles sont-elles plus précises que les prévisions inconditionnelles dans les projections de croissance et d’inflation en zone CEMAC ?

This study compares the predictive performance of the conditional forecasting technique against the unconditional technique. The conditional technique consist of taking into account the information available on an endogenous variable over part of the forecast horizon. We develop a Bayesian VAR model with three endogenous, real growth, inflation and monetary growth, in which we condition the evolution of monetary growth by considering three types of scenarios : basic, optimistic and pessimistic. Two main results can be draw from our simulations : (i) the conditional forecasting approach is generally more precise than the unconditional approach ; (ii) the uncertainty around the central forecast is reduced with the conditional forecast technique. These results therefore call on the central bank to adopt the conditional forecasting technique in projections of real growth and inflation ; but also to consider various scenarios on the variable to be conditioned