Renegotiating citizen participation in local governance in Africa: the case of Cameroon

In most African countries, political liberation was supported by spontaneous people's movements and various constellations of civil society. The post-independent era witnessed the introduction of a one-party system, which fundamentally curtailed these freedoms which were at the centre of the decolonial debate in Africa. The liberal market ideology that pervaded economic and political spaces after 1990 heralded alternatives for civil society to self-organize for political change in the continent. In the Economic Commission for Central African States (ECCAS), the legislative framework for citizen participation in local governance processes and structures encountered steep resistance from political elites. However, exogenous factors, together with home-grown citizen initiatives to advance the well-being of the people, emerged. In post-independent Cameroon, citizen participation in local governance processes was shaped by the rigid political and, subsequently, economic systems that the country experienced. With the demise of the bipolar World, people fashioned different places of engagement through civil society spaces where expectations and conceptions of civic involvement were developed and articulated. This policy paper analyses the regulatory framework for civil society participation in local governance in the ECCAS sub-region. It also examines citizen participation in local governance processes and structures in Cameroon. The paper identifies key challenges inhibiting citizens from freely engaging in civic activities in the country and presents some policy directions ECCAS and the state of Cameroon need to take to facilitate the effective involvement of citizens in the associational life of the sub-region and of Cameroon.