BETTER WORLD PROJECT: USING ECOLOGICAL AGRICULTURE TO FIGHT CLIMATE CHANGE We are creating a Community Education Centre and Eco village in Biyem Assi, Centre Region, Yaoundé which is essentially a blueprint for urban and rural regeneration in three poor Communities in Cameroon. Yaoundé 3rd District, Bafut in the North West Region and Yagoua in the Far North Region. There is 85% youth unemployment in these regions and we aim to educate people in Permaculture Practice and set them up in whatever way we can to get them working to improve food production and at the same time protecting the environment through improved ecological agriculture. We have identified various skills namely organic Market gardening, Landscape gardening, Tree crop production, tool making, cooking, handicraft, environmental art, fish farming cane rat breeding, mushroom cultivation, piggery, poultry farming, creating community seed banks and so on. The idea is to use the existing skilled and trained people to pass those skills on to the next generation of people, who will pass the training on to more people in their turn. So if we are able to set up three training centers with all the right farm workshops and facilities including very importantly a solar-powered internet centre, and biogas systems which will also generate income for the project, without continuous input from outside the community financially or otherwise, it will be a self-sustaining project. Those who do the training get to use the facilities so they can run their own business, and everybody wins. We are already negotiating land in these areas through the municipal authorities, we need construction materials to build the eco centers and we need equipment for the workshops, furniture, computer equipment – with a small amount of funding we could truck used second hand farming tools and other technical equipment through our friends in Brighton, UK. They have made us understand that things which are thrown out there regularly could be use to equip our Resource Learning Centre and equip the Permaculture Workshop. Anything that’s surplus can be sold and put back in the project as there is a big market in second-hand goods in Cameroon. In theory we could be given the land if we could raise a good enough profile, and it does happen, because land isn’t cheap – we are talking of possibly up to £10,000, and maybe we could get some of the materials donated to keep the costs lower, otherwise we have to do a lot of fund-raising both at home and abroad. What we do have is a lot of skilled people with a lot of time on their hands who are skilled enough to build the eco buildings; we have had the experience of working with them in the preliminary land use appropriate technological workshops we have conducted over the years, so there’s a workforce that could be on the job training for the unskilled as well. There are enormous numbers of young people, people of all ages, actually, who are board, their hands desperate for something to do and this would engage them brilliantly. We are aiming to engage in market gardening as part of the income generation scheme in Yaoundé as from January, 2010, and knowing how fast things can come together in Yaoundé there’s no reason why if everything is in place operational structures couldn’t be built quite quickly. The manpower is there and there’s not very much bureaucracy to hold things up. The ethos that has been built among partner youth associations is that this is not a free ride for anyone, the youth and local people know that if they want to benefit, they have to contribute, whether it’s giving their time and effort to build the buildings or training someone when they use the Ecological Agriculture Centers. So it should address a lot of issues for a lot of socially excluded young people HIV AIDS orphans and people with disability, a real community project which will unite youth and women to build their capacities and enable them participate effectively in the decentralization process underway in the country. Like anywhere where there’s high unemployment you get crime and problems like drug addiction, so a project like this should really give people something constructive to do and improve the whole community. The Cameroon One World Linking Association Better World is putting in place with the help of VSO will result in a more efficient organization through international linking with the Better World Permaculture and Fighting Climate Change Initiative and creating Partnerships that can achieve better results for and with our target groups. Some of the produce of Permaculture and Community Centre will also be sold directly as fair trade goods – there’s already someone in the UK who says if we can provide reasonable quality goods like craft and art then he’s got an outlet there to sell them which cuts out all the middlemen. Better World Permaculture is a blueprint for anywhere in Africa.

TOGETHER FOR A BETTER WORLD

VISIONING THE OGANISATIONLA DEVELOPMENT PROCESS (OD) UNDER WAY AT BETTER WORLD CAMEROON COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL ENTERPRISE INSTRUMENTS AND THE ECOLOGICAL ENVIRONMENT WITH A VIEW TO UPDATING THE NDANIFOR OUTLINE BUSINESS PLAN AND INTEGRATING A CAMEROON CODE ON NORTH/SOUTH LINKING AND PARTNERSHIPS. BY JOSHUA KONKANKOH NATIONAL COORDINATOR, BETTER WORLD CAMEROON.  December, 2009. RELATION BUILDING DISCUSSION DOCUMENT FOR: VSO, NGUKT, ASP, TRANSITION TOWNS FARNHARM, UKOWLA, BUILD, WORLD FARMILY, PERMACULTURE ASSOCIATION OF BRITAIN, SANTA BARBARA PERMACULTURE NETWORK, PLAN AFRICA-FOOD, AFRISTAR FOUNDATION, GOLD STAR COMMUNITIES PROJECT, PERMACULTURE RESEARCH INSTITUTE AUSTRALIA, BLUE MOUNTAIN PERMACULTURE INSTITUTE, PERMACULTURA AMERICA LATINA, ZIPSCOPE, RESCOPE ETC  VISION IN ACTION INTRODUCTION  Since the writing of the Ndanifor Outline Business plan by Economic Partnerships and Common Cause Foundation UK in 2006, there have been great strides in Better World achievements in Cameroon and internationally in bridging the disparity of access to sustainable development information between villages and urban towns and Civil Society Development Organisations. The most remarkable being the added role of Better World in the Welsh Parliament supported Participation and Governance Programme (P&G) in Cameroon. The P&G programme operating on a VSO platform aims to accompany civil society organisations in influencing government policy and promoting small scale farming in order to achieve socio-economic development. Through an Organisational Development process (OD), conducted by VSO, Better World has chosen to unroll its advocacy action for sustainable agriculture in Africa through Permaculture Practice, here called Better World Permaculture that will focus its future around food issues and climate change. Given better World’s track record and impact in ecological agriculture, VSO foresees in Better World Permaculture points of convergence with its principles of Sharing Skills and Changing Lives in rural communities. Both organisations intervene in decentralised regions in Cameroon and work in the promotion of international Linkages and Partnerships in order to make International Aid more efficient. For this reason, VSO helped recruit a management support volunteer on placement at Better World since September, 2009 to work along the project in providing management support for two years. The OD process aims to support BWC in building its ability to increase the scope, impact and efficiency of its development initiatives. The VSO volunteer is supporting BWC national volunteers and the Coordinator (OD Committee) through a self analysis which will enable them to come up with a new Organisational Development Plan. This against the backdrop of increasing fear of another social explosion in Cameroon and the central African countries provoked by constant rising food crisis. Both Better World and VSO believe that giving support to Civil Society Organisations and youth associations involved in sustainable agriculture can do what adults have failed to do in poverty reduction, protection of the environment and ensuring food security. The objective of conducting the OD process is to give ample room to Better World partners and donors for practical ideas and innovation. It is expected that this Planning Action, Reflection and Learning will lead to the setting up of a Cameroon One World Linking Association (COWLA) on the Better World Platform and a preliminary focal point for secretarial work related to Building Understanding through International Links for Development (BUILD) in West and Central Africa. These structures will be used to share the Vision of the Principle of a One World family. Better World social enterprise services are rooted in the genial idea that human wellbeing can be better served only by relieving people of all their problems; overcoming injustice, relieving poverty and promoting better lifestyles that are favourable to the environment. Socially excluded youth in Cameroon and the central African region have since resigned to the fact that organised public institutions do not reflect their concerns hopes and needs. To them life can nothing else but poverty resignation scorn and emptiness. Better World created in 1996 as an Association of Unemployed Youth researched into youth apathy and proposed ecological agriculture and One World Linking as the means for making a Better World for all; a model designed with a conscious effort to include HIV AIDS orphans and people with disability in the Better World Permaculture Project of vocational training and self employment. BWC is deeply concerned that Africa as a whole is not on track to meet the MDGs by 2015. Yet, since many individual countries in the West are on track to achieve at least some of the Goals, there is no reason why young people in developing countries cannot take up the challenge. Moreover, many African governments have significantly strengthened their policies, advancing the conditions for long-term economic growth. The legal environment therefore exists for the Better World Permaculture Project to make all the difference. A word from the National Coordinator of Better World Government policy framework in Cameroon for attaining its goal of sustainable development is the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP), which expressly defines key sectors. One of the strategic areas is the development of rural sectors in which specific actions are geared towards environment protection and natural resources, agricultural diversification for sustainable development hence the necessity for improving the health and income of rural and urban populations. For Better World Cameroon, (BWC) the promotion of sustainable environment and rational management of human resources is not incompatible with poverty reduction through micro projects development by young people; but rather depends on it. For BWC one important factor for promoting a sustainable environment is the conservation of services that are vital to mankind and which are provided by our ecosystems, such as food, shelter and building materials. For BWC nothing takes care of these basic needs more than its focus programme Permaculture Design Training and Practice. Permaculture is commonly referred to as permanent agriculture. Another equally important aspect is the need to master the management of water, air and atmosphere (in other words industrial and house hold pollution). These environmental issues are of special importance not only to Cameroon but also to the entire central and West African region and beyond hence our focus on a Better World Permaculture and Climate Change micro project already in process designed and implemental by environmental science graduates serving as volunteers and supervised by the National Coordinator of BWC who has integrated the initiative in the Ndanifor Community Garden Project (NCGP) in Nsimeyong village, Tam-Tam Weekend quarter in Yaounde. For that purpose, NCGP has allocated a Permaculture demonstration facility for visiting groups and is designing it as an educational tool. BWC is therefore looking for funding to NCGP to be developed as an Ecological Literacy Centre for Permaculture excellence, informal training and capacity building, and to extend the infrastructural development of services, security and educational resource facilities. ABOUT BETTER WORLD CAMEROON: BWC is the brain child of Joshua Konkankoh, social entrepreneur in Cameroon who jointly agreed with the Association of Unemployed Youths to set up in 1996 the grassroots NGO Better World Cameroon and NCGP as the Environment, Natural Resource Protection and Regeneration Support Programme for youth development designed to compliment lapses in the government PRSP. A major component of BWC is researching on innovative ecological agriculture initiatives geared towards innovative environmental protection and income generating micro-projects through the NCGP facility. The implementation strategy of NCGP micro-projects component was been formulated and updated in 2006 by Economic Partnerships UK, Common Cause Foundation and Ndanifor Gardens UK Trust set out as the Ndanifor Outline Business Plan (available upon request). In 2009 Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) has signed a partnership with BWC aimed at assisting validation and implementation of the project through an Organisational Development (OD) process. These sets of political and environmental strategies being updated through the OD process will contribute in no small way in the attainment of the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs), in particular Goal 7, which is to “ensure a sustainable environment”. RESTRUCTURING The new Organizational Chart Managing Performance to ensue from the OD will attempt to resolve the dysfunction of income generation which has so far destabilised the financial equilibrium of the organisation since its backbone of income generation (the Garden) became destroyed and remain in a state of disrepair. Registration of Strategic Business Unit Service Provider “Better World Social Entreprise” for delivery of ICTs and Renewable Energy Systems to small scale farmers. COMPONENT I BUILDING ON EXISTING STRUCTURES Ndanifor Garden Clubs: Better World Students Nature Club, Ndanifor Dance and Theatre Troupe New Breed Volunteers, Steering Committee and Regional Offices Ndanifor Community Garden Project is locally driven and has the potential to contribute to sustainable agriculture and the global environment. Ndanifor Community Garden Project (NCGP) was conceived on the principle that the best way to solve the food crisis in Africa is to increase local production. NCGP fights against quasi-philanthropist neo-colonial foreign investment out grower’s schemes through its GM Free and Fighting Land Grabs Programme. It hosts the interactive Better World Ecological Literacy Centre from where a national ecological movement for Cameroon is growing. NCGP through its outreach Garden Club Better World Student’s Nature Club (BSNC) builds the capacities of local communities and empowers them to take control of their food systems. BSNC Market Venture (cultivating healthy and affordable food) is out to make NCGP a Bio Safety Reserve. BSNC also constitutes the Advisory Service of the Permaculture Extension Programme of BWC. BSNC therefore works towards the elimination of the causes of youth marginalisation. Its mission is to actively contribute to the operational strategy of BWC. BSNC was founded in 2006 as the first garden club of the Ndanifor Community Garden Project. BSNC has been central in supporting the development, strategic planning and designing of micro projects for income generation. It is active in capacity building of Better World partners; providing information on thematic areas; linking with other Permacultre networks in Africa and the North; and carrying out advocacy work in Europe and North America. It aims at empowering mostly vulnerable young women and small scale farmers in Permaculture and using appropriate technologies and renewable energy systems to assess their ability to sustainable development. Objectives of BSNC Developing Permaculture Practice in Africa in order to: Develop interest in healthy food and nutrition for poor communities. Raise concerns about the health risk of handling chemicals and actively campaign against the use of GMOs and the new phenomenon of land grabs in Africa. Mobilise and sensitise youths about climate change and environmental degradation. Carry out research in ecological agriculture and traditional farming systems aimed at increasing yields and bringing up to date agriculture research findings to small scale farmers. Making information on African Permaculture widely accessible to as many people as possible by updating the Better World website- www.betterworld-cameroon.com . Advocate for land reforms in Cameroon and push for women’s right to land. Lay the foundation for a knowledge-based society and open BWC to change and improvement. BSNC’s Permaculture coordinator was recently trained in Sustainable Cropping Systems and is running a Permaculture demo plot in the NCGP where she is improving locally grown crops: local vegetable, fruits, spices, and medicinal plants. BSNC GOOD GOVERNANCE PROGRAMME BSNC is active in ecological governance through the Participation and Governance programme (P&G) BWC is carrying out in partnership with VSO to accompany the decentralisation Process in Cameroon. Through it BSNC is promoting youth participation in decision making in collaboration with the National Youth Council and working with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in providing capacity to local councils. BSNC believes it is really important that if we are to have better local democracy and devolution of power to communities that will give more power to the youth, it matters for the success of P&G. This because among the biggest obstacles to creating sustainable communities and youth activities tackling climate change is the dead hand and lack of leadership in local councils and government itself. BSNC uses knowledge generated from the BWC Ecological Literacy Centre to empower small holder farmers and advocate for social justice. BSNC’s principal mission is therefore to urge the Cameroon government and its development partners to support and facilitate grass-roots Civil Society Organisations working with local councils to adopt technologies and development processes geared towards fighting poverty, unemployment, and environmental degradation. BSNC Digital Green Forum on BWC web site will be developed for schools and communities interested in discussions on global environmental concerns to exchange ideas and information; connecting them up to international networks that will ensure that the opinions of young Africans on biodiversity conservation and other world issues like climate change are heard. Better World Children Environmental Club (BWCEC) a children’s wing of BSNC’s agency for children’s programmes that provide opportunities for children to contribute in their communities, learn skills and spend their free time productively and safely. Through children’s drama and sketches on environmental protection, performed in underprivileged schools, they are supported financially by BWC. Through BWCEC, socially excluded children discover a group to belong to and a whole support network to run to when they need help and guidance. Urban and rural gardening programmes provide a participatory experience that connects children in urban slumps and poor villages to the soil, plant and animal life. BSNC WASH PROGRAMME BSNC intends to set up a health club and a dispensary in NCGP. In addition BSNC local development staff will be of benefit to the Nsimeyong community and partner local councils through its WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Sensitization Campaigns with specific information on ventilated improved pit latrines in the villages and building toilets and improved drinking water in primary schools. BSNC BETTER WORLD PERMACULTURE AND FIGHT AGAINSTCLIMATE CHANGE BWPCCI is the focus project of BWC’s vision of the “good life” based on self-sufficiency and simplicity. It is the wisdom of the ages (African Civilisation) of living sustainably on the land. It is based on the case study of the Better World Project carried out by a group of social anthropology students from School of Oriental and African Studies London (SOAS) and environmental science students from Universities in Cameroon. It represents wise practices of life in an African homestead and adapted lifestyle. In its modern focus, BWPCCI examines how sustainable agriculture can influence the health of HIV AIDS victims; how the good health of the community influences agriculture and how the two need to be linked together in the fight against poverty in Africa.BWPCCI emphasises that action in both of these fields will provide important opportunities in improving food sovereignty in poor communities. BWPCCI’s strong point is that the young generation of Africa today needs capacity building to assume their leadership that can propel their entrepreneurial action towards sustainable development. For this to happen, energy resources and communication technologies become vital tools to attain the Millennium Development Goals. On the ground now in Cameroon, BWPCCI is focused on resolving the problem of youth unemployment and environmental degradation through ecological agriculture, creativity and productivity. The only youth development agenda in Cameroon by the government is still being reflected upon in the Ministry of Youth Affairs as it tries to put in place a National Youth Council while the so called “Grand Ambition” development plan of the government based on the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper is not a people’s agenda but that of politicians which do not take into account young people’s aspirations. Against this background, BWPCCI brings a glimmer of hope to young people who see it as a Youth Development Highway for Cameroon and Africa. The Spirit of Ndanifor . In the great depression of the youth in Cameroon since the early 90s the Association of Unemployed Youths (university graduates worked with the founder of the Better World foundation, Joshua Konkankoh to create a national youth development programme based on the Earth Charter dedicated to conserving land for future generations. We bought and cleared a 5acres dump site in Nsimeyong village on the outskirts of Yaoundé, capital city of Cameroon. Here we created fertile organic gardens and started the practice of reconnecting youth to mother earth and living sustainably on the land. In 1996 Better World Cameroon was registered as a youth alternative good life centre, a non-profit NGO based on the Bafut village homestead “Spirit of Ndanifor” (right of passage for youth into adulthood). The Spirit of Ndanifor has become the fundamental youth development concept supporting youth, women and collective efforts to live sustainably into the future, guided by the principles of kindness, respect and compassion in relationships with natural and human communities. Both Spirit of Ndanifor and BWPCCI are strong inclusive and complementary elements which enable BWC promote active participation in the advancement of social justice, reactive integration of mind, body and spirit, and deliberate choice in the effort to live responsibly and harmoniously in an increasingly complicated world. The Spirit of Ndanifor promotes Volunteerism as the foundation of Better World Permaculture. Please contact us if you are interested in visiting or in lending help hands to keep the Ecological Literacy Centre open or repairing flood damage that devastated the NCGP in 2006. betternatureclub@yahoo.com Laura Atabe (volunteer coordinator of BWPCCI) BWPCCI-Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development Partnership There has been a long history of collaboration between the Ministry of Agriculture and Better World which has become a strong vehicle for young people’s development and their involvement in their communities through individual volunteerism. The Department of Community Development has provided guided mentorship to Better World in giving young people the self confidence to bring about positive change. A key part of the partnership is the creation of an ecological agricultural zone in the Biyeme valley on the fertile piece of land of Ndanifor for organic gardening, agro forestry, fish farming, tool making and animal husbandry. This is to constitute the Permaculture Science Station for carrying out socio-cultural and economic research to promote youth entrepreneurship in agriculture self employment and for introducing environmental education in schools and the community. The new convention between Better World and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development will give focus to Better World Permaculture that would open wider opportunities for international solidarity for a Better World for all. Under his new dispensation, BWPCCI proposes a full range of solutions that will facilitate the transition to a low carbon economy in Cameroon and the Central African region including renewable energy, intensive use of bio energy, environmentally sound technologies, protection and enhancement of carbon sinks ad reservoir sustainable agriculture and improved waste management. BWPCCI will investigate and consider all suggestions made by users and stake holders, and will make recommendations to IPC and Plan Africa, to seek advice. BWPCCI will give extensive new support to students of the Community Education Action Centres (CEACs) while setting up a series of Agro forestry pilots aimed at testing ways of increasing community services participation within the frame work of the Partnership and Governance Programme. Better World is committed to making youth serving their community to become a normal part of youth development in every community because every youth has something unique to offer. For this BWPCCI teachers will organise conservation and ecological agriculture workshops in Community Education Action Centres and BSNC education officers will visit schools and communities to speak to students. Ndanifor Dance and Theatre Troupe the Cultural Wing of BSNC will produce their play “The Hunter and the Wood Cutter”. Each year, BSNC will organise an International inter Demonical Conference on Religion, Biodiversity Conservation and Peace. As agriculture is the principal alternative to hunting in terms of income generation, it is in this key area that BWPCCI Training will pay more attention. School and community Permaculture concerns will be established in most vulnerable areas for the purpose of demonstration of techniques of organic farming and improvement of indigenous knowledge. Permaculture is the best way of helping small holder farmers to improve ecological agriculture and food production and as agriculture remains the only means of making a livelihood in the rural areas, BWPCCI rural development and extension staff will replicate their training modules in the regions as liaison staff to MINADER to work with villagers on an ongoing basis. Regular monitoring and evaluation visits to each village in the project areas will allow information and communication from researchers and the Permaculture station in Yaoundé to be taken to the rural areas and concerns of farmers from the rural areas to be relayed back to MINADER and BWPCCI. In this way BWC-MINADER coordination will be well informed of indigenous knowledge and adapt accordingly. The increase of food production and diversification of crops through Permaculture practice will remain a primary objective of MINADER-BWC Partnership. LIVESTOCK (CANE RAT, PIGS AND CHICKEN PRODUCTION) The Biyeme livestock farmer’s group will receive support form MINADER-BWC Partnership to replicate their activities in the rural areas. This approach will reduce the poor population’s dependence on bush meat and provide a good source of protein for their meals. SAHEL GREEN- FAR NORTH REGION – Reviving Lost Lands Desertification is spreading like a disease in the far north region. 70% of households send their children to the Southern regions to earn money leaving a trail of poverty and hunger. The problem can be fixed by BWPCCI by acting in good time. In recognition of the importance of Agro forestry Programme as a sustainable system of growing tree crops, women and youth village groups in the Far North Region will be encouraged to make community nurseries. BWPCCI will set up demonstration tree nurseries in community schools for raising a variety of tree seedlings for sale to local people. Our experience has shown that fruit trees like mangoes, avocado pears, oranges, paw paws, guavas and palms are popular. At total of 12.876 tree seedlings have been sold to farmers or given free to schools and churches by BWP in Yaoundé. COMPONENT II BETTER WORLD IT CENTRE (BWITC)-LINKING UP AFRICA A generation of young people is lost in the labour market as the information revolution completely by passes millions of socially excluded youth in Africa. Better World is committed to setting up an IT suit for its Resource Learning Centre based on a youth unemployment scheme that promotes Permaculture practise, ecological agriculture and small scale enterprises. IT Making International Aid Efficient 80% of Aid serves the interests of the rich in Africa. BWC views that international funding is too serious a business to be left in the hands of corrupt politicians alone. Although aid is not the best way to solve environmental problems, BWC intends to truck used computers and development equipment through grassroots channels against African craft and Art in order to promote fair trade. BWC intends to convert the used shipping containers into IT Booths for communal communication that will provide community services like pay telephone, messaging, distance learning and locations for food production and distribution to the rural poor in its community gardens scheme. Some will serve for handicraft shops, kitchens, restaurant/community café and dress making. These sustainable community locations will provide many opportunities for skills development in IT within the poor communities. BWC has identified groups in the Diaspora wishing to work with Civil Society Organisations in Cameroon on using IT to foster biological and cultural diversity as facilitators of climate change sequestration. BWC believes Fair Trade will do more benefit in reducing poverty and help reverse the global financial crisis. BWIT which constitute a big window of opportunity for Africa to contribute to global environmental issues will also greatly facilitate integration of capacity building. Better World IT Centre (BWITC) is designed to be the nerve centre of computer power in the better World Youth entrepreneurship programme to serve as a gateway to the external World for Cameroon One World Linking Association (COWLA), Building Understanding through International Links for Development (BUILD) UK and World Family UK. The centre will have the added advantage of undertaking an income generating scheme through the running of a fully equipped ultra-modern cyber centre where internet and office automation services are available for vocational education research and distance learning purposes, and dial up service for other organisations remote users of internet. The centre will be provided with a stable reliable internet connection to the outside world by a VSAT gateway to harbour a local Area Net work consisting of 40 workstations, 3 international telephone lines and a dial-up connection service. The Vocational Education Vision Given the congested student population in Biyem-Assi over 5.000, BWITC centre will become very sought after because of its bilingualism French/English. It will enhance research; distance/online education as well as training in IT related low income services. Training in Operation and Maintenance The goal is to develop strategic partnerships with councils, village communities and stake holders that will ensure access of information with particular attention to water sanitation and hygiene and waste management. COMPONENT III BETTER WORLD CAMEROON REGIONAL NETWORKS SECURING TRANSVERSAL REALTIONS WITH CAMEROONIAN CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANISATIONS. The strength of BWC beginning with the North West Association of Development Organisations and Yagoua Women Small Scale Farmer’s will hence forth lie in using COWLA in the promotion of transversal environmental/poverty alleviation issues through Cameroon Civil Society Organisations. Programmes to support sectoral strategies concerned with Permaculture, food sovereignty and climate change issues in terms of sustainable environmental and natural resource management, are under way in key Ministries. These programmes consider the environment and livelihood improvement as a transversal issue in development policies. COWLA will provide assistance to consenting linking partners for the harmonisation and elaboration of implementation instruments and code of conduct. In addition information support will be provided to such areas of strategic sectors as Waste and Water management, and Vocational Education. 2.1Support to Sectoral Policy and strategic design BWC currently works on environmental matters in close cooperation with such Ministries as: MINEP (Ministry of Environment and Nature Protection) MINADER (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural development) MINJEUNE (Ministry of Youth Affairs) MINEE (Ministry of Energy and Water) MINREX (Ministry of External Relations- Commonwealth Department) MINDIC (Ministry of Industry and Commercial Development) MINPMEESA (Ministry of small and medium-sized enterprises, social economy and handicraft) In our national networking policy and strategy, national action plans on priority environment sectors such as desertification, renewable energy and biodiversity, would be finalised and validated in the OD process to enable COWLA to achieve its mission. For now both BWC and VSO intervene in two decentralised regions (the North West Region and the Far north region). COMPONENT IV Cameroon One World Linking Association (COWLA) Bringing together grassroots development organisations working at community level through sustainable development initiatives to share their work so that we can learn from each other detect areas in which an international collaborative approach might be beneficial. COWLA will also carry out research into the impact of international links in Cameroon’s development. We envisage a better world without social exclusion and poverty due to environmental degradation. We are committed in building a ‘better world’ in which African values of respect for the land and nature are projected. Our vision is a world in which good ideals of African solidarity are recognised and given a helping hand. Civil Society Organizations in Cameroon and VSO supported by the Welsh parliamentary Group are putting COWLA on the table of North South Dialogue as a tool for strengthening coordination and follow up on international solidarity and making international aid efficient. Following the Rio Summit in 1992, BWC decided to put in place a national environmental management plan using the NCGP whose fundamental objective is to ensure environmental protection and resource development, with a view to promoting sustainable development in Cameroon and else where. For diverse reasons the Ndanifor community garden project did not take off as initially planned because of the economic crisis and lack of seed capital. However, the present OD is turning out to be an international advocacy agency for promoting COWLA and is launching a process to update and render operational NCGP’s concept so as to enable the attainment of its objectives. BWC is being supported in its organisational self assessment (OD) through the placement of a VSO volunteer who will supervise the OD and provide management support along side the day to day running of the organisation for two years. On the basis of this self assessment, COWLA a sister organisation to the UK One World Linking Association (UKOWLA) will enable BWC become a more functional linking platform which will result in a more effective organisation that can achieve better results for and with their target groups through linking and partnerships. We believe that a Better World Linking Platform will establish in the minds of policy makers and other stakeholders how effective partnerships can be in bringing a global dimension into developing school curriculum and adding to the personal and professional development of pupils and teachers, engaging the wider communities and helping young people to become active global citizens. BWC coordination and steering committee have a clear and unified understanding of effective leadership performance and how to monitor and evaluate existing links and partnerships in Cameroon. The OD process will build on this to ensure result-based objectives are emphasized providing clarity as to what constitutes effective organisational performance. COMPONENT V A UKOWLA AND BUILD Rendering action plans for regional representation in Cameroon operational forprogress in health systems, education for all and sustaining the environmental resource base through international linkages and partnerships. BWC is negotiating technical support from BUILD to run a national strategic workshop in Cameroon to complete the visioning process of the strategic areas of collaboration between BWC and UKOWLA, BUILD and World Family in analysing the practical requirements for this support. BWC has researched through national Civil Society Organisations that attended the BUILD Conference in Yaoundé to establish the need for a BUILD secretariat in Cameroon which will used by networks of civil service organisations. BWC has found out that there is enough demand within Cameroon Civil Society Organisations for linking and partnerships with the developed countries of the North. VSO Cameroon is presently assisting BWC through the organisational development (OD) to determine how linkages and partnerships with the North will work through a BUILD Secretariat and the Welsh parliamentary group support and how income will be generated to support the work of BWC in capacity building, infrastructural development of services and educational resources facilities. Through capacity building BWC in addition to developing community profiles, creating data bases of accredited organisations and offering linking services could be supported to market a unique Cameroon home-grown concept of international linking and open up sharing and learning within linking initiatives like the Gold Star Community’s Project in Wales, the Commonwealth foundation, Eden Project and the related organisations listed on the first page. VSO is already liking the Diaspora to start helping with negotiations with councils and developing a Quality Assurance Mechanism (QAM) to be replicated in the regions within the frame works of the decentralisation process in Cameroon and voluntary exchange programmes in the West. GOALS of the ORGANISATIONAL DEVLOPMENT Process (OD) Efforts to internationalise BWC Permaculture practice as an indigenous African concept of sustainable development and an effective tool in the fight against hunger and climate change. Property Rights for BWC Concept. To catalyse international cooperation and collective problem solving between Civil Society Organisations in Cameroon and foreign organisations through Linking and Partnerships. The relief of unemployment. BWC had begun in 1996 together with the Association of Unemployed Youth of Cameroon a process of dealing with rising unemployment and environmental degradation. This initiative continues to address the ambition of BWC in finding a way of increasing practical know-how in the youths to raise levels of innovation and collaboration across global youth network in pursing projects that are kind to the environment. ACTIVITIES VSO and BUILD will assist with formulating funding requirements and knowledge to advance the school and community linking activities of BWC, a consultant will be identified to work along side BWC in on rolling the development plans contained in the final OD. The on going Organisation Development Process is also about setting up a youth micro project scheme which will create job opportunities by developing Permaculture Design and community/school gardens. In addition, BWC will expand its Appropriate Technology Workshop for the manufacture of horticultural hand tools to include small machine manufacture. An existing landscape business which has been used successfully will also be incorporated into the job creation scheme. A million tree community nurseries will be developed as part of the scheme to generate income and supply reforestation programmes. BWC is already publishing a young women’s Permaculture magazine for promoting sustainable agricultural schemes; it will be developed to encourage underprivileged rural and urban youths to consider ecological agriculture as a profession. AGRICULTURAL TOOLS PRODUCTION An appropriate Technology workshop has been constructed with financial assistance from the American Embassy in Yaoundé but needs equipping to enable Better World trained technicians to continue producing garden structures, gardening tools, general maintenance and adapting agricultural small machines. Mankwi Sustainable Village Initiative (MSVI) MSVI is BWC’s imaginary ideal village in Bafut in the North West Region in 2015. An improved scenario where the children all go to school, the village health centre works and takes care of increasing HIV AIDS patients and orphans; where young people know how to read and make use of the village library and Digital Green IT Booth provided next to the school. Such an imaginary breakthrough is a dream for many socially excluded communities in Africa. This is the pioneer glimpse of some of the changes hoped for in 2015, the deadline for the Millennium Development Goals.

Cameroon (COWLA) One World Linking Association ABSTRACT Young men and women in Better World Cameroon (BWC) are dreaming a “Better World” where Sustainable Development will become a reality in Africa. Essentially BWC encourages women and the youth to understand the nature of their own culture, its roots and what it can offer to universal culture. On this basis, respecting social and cultural patterns in the use of natural resources enables a change in some practices and conditions in our traditional culture such as farming techniques that accelerate erosion and environmental degradation leading to climate change, and social institutions such as the place of women in society, corruption in traditional authority and the need for good governance. The understanding that culture is dynamic brings about economic and social development and can shape a uniquely African model for poverty reduction. The Need for a COWLA: Many Non Governmental Organizations and Civil Society Organizations particularly small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) in Cameroon and the African Sub Saharan Africa do not have the experience or understanding to successfully identify prospective partners and develop links and partnerships. More especially, they are inexperienced in the field of presentation. Similarly organizations in the North are not effectively promoting linking and partnerships opportunities in Cameroon. There is therefore an urgent need to help the grassroots initiative from Better World Cameroon to upgrade its services so that it can provide greater advice and support to Cameroon civil society organizations and international organizations. The aim of this linking initiative is therefore to help the Cameroon Diaspora, international organizations, and Business Intermediaries so they can successfully develop sustainable linkages and partnerships with other African Commonwealth countries and Cameroon in particular, bridge International Solidarity and Capacity Building within the framework of A One World Movement using the emerging Spirit of Ndanifor as practiced in the Better World Permaculture Project. Objectives: Development of International Linkages, Partnerships and joint ventures in order to make international aid efficient. -Heightening the Knowledge of young people on Social Enterprise and International Solidarity. -Conservation of the living past of Africa’s value systems and artefacts of rituals connecting people to mother earth. -Enlightening public opinion on the spirit of African solidarity and exposing its cultural values to the outside world through Fair Trade. -Provision of social facilities for youth groups -Protection and conservation of built and natural environment Outcome: - organizations and government departments as well as Cameroonian NGOs and other Civil Society Organizations will have a better understanding of why they need to develop overseas linkages, what they have to do to attract partners and what mutual benefits could accrue from building one world, a Better World. -Better World Cameroon Linking organization COWLA will improve communications so there is a better flow of information and development education between Cameroon and the International community. -Advancement of development education and vocational training. -Promote an advance information infrastructure for competitive market forces and selecting genuine involvement. -Increase competition and innovation and diminishing bureaucratic legislation. (Breaking with the old structures put in place during independence which serves only the West) COWLA Criteria for membership If you are a national or international organisation that believes in the power of international solidarity to save the world from its many troubles through cross-cultural learning, school and community based partnerships and interfaith faith dialogue for peace and social dialogue as a means to develop awareness and meeting the Millennium Development Goals and you are working directly or indirectly in that field and can make a contribution to this One World Family Movement of people, you are welcome to join us. In return Better World Cameroon will provide opportunities to network with other organisations working in this field and will provide access to senior citizens and progressive politicians working with “Connecting Communities for a Better World”. Better World’s needs and purposes BWC firmly believes that COWLA will indeed set up the take off platform and constitute a solid framework for real solutions of building bridges of understanding with Africa who can now actively participate in global issues and bringing about sustainable development. From BWC’s point of view, Permaculture which is the underlying system of farming that integrates ecology with agricultural science could easily form the basis of UK’s and North America’s proactive involvement in Africa and reforming International Cooperation given its benefits to food sovereignty and the environment. Through the COWLA platform, BWC hopes to develop equitable, environmentally, socially and economically sustainable youth initiatives through the generation and providing of access to useful indigenous knowledge, in environmental protection, agricultural science and renewable energies. COWLA will encourage Linking and Partnerships which can improve rural and urban livelihoods and significantly contribute to hunger and poverty reduction. The event of a functional COWLA will provide a good opportunity for all partners to design a mutual social enterprise sharing mechanism and this will offer BWC to discuss the IT component of the mechanism. Without IT we cannot render efficient services to small scale farmers and expand our Strategic Business Unit for delivery of renewable energy systems to improve small and medium size agribusiness.