completed projects

GDA

COMPLETED PROJECTS

2017 - 2025

The year 2017 had dawned with a resolved determination to engage the Green Development Advocates into environmental advocacy focused on ensuring an enabling environment for local and indigenous peoples (IPLC) living within their ancestral lands in a bid to encourage good environmental governance and the sustainable use of their natural resources.

It is no secret to reveal that indigenous and local populations remain the most vulnerable victims of environmental degradation and natural resource spoliation resulting from the unpopular decisions taken by their governments. Most of these decisions are largely in the interest of predatory economic activities of capitalist multinational holdings focused on extracting as much of the resources but leaving behind telling ecological devastation and socio-economic hazards. These hazards are lived by the communities, both in the immediate as well as in the long term and in the glare of everyone,  with little or no remedy at all.

Up to December 2025, GDA has had to engage into numerous program support activities by way of mass campaigns, capacity building initiatives and material assistance which have had a profound impact on the livelihoods of the several IPLC’s affected by extractive industries and forest conversion in the South, Centre, East, Littoral and Southwest regions of Cameroon.

These actions have been quite effective thanks to funding from partners and donor agencies concerned with promoting the avowed goals of the organization.

Noteworthy is the fact that GDA has had to adjust her operational dynamics in the course of the years from a core projects implementation perspective to a core programs dispensation. In this light project elaboration and implementation fall within the framework of a holistic operational core programs support approach anchored  on its four main axis which are:

• - Securing and recognizing land and forest rights as well as the traditional governance systems of indigenous peoples and local communities
• - Promoting forest governance and the sustainable management of other natural resources
• - Contribute in efforts to mitigate the effects of Climate change and encourage the promotion of low carbon emission economy

-   Capacity building, communication and resource mobilization.

Prior to this innovation a number of core projects were elaborated and implemented. Some are still in process and eventually integrated into the GDA operational platform while some and have ended and with remarkable success.

• Support to the empowerment and resilience of the Bagyeli

of Lokoundje to climate change

The main objective of the project was to contribute to securing the traditional lands under threat of expropriation by the large scale development projects underway in the vital spaces of the indigenous  Bagyeli communities in the villages of Bivouba, Mintende and Kague in the Lokoundje area.

Specifically, the project aimed to:

- Strengthen the recognition of the traditional/ancestral lands of the Bagyeli populations of the villages of Bivouba, Mintende and Kague in the Lokoundje subdivision as a step towards the preservation of biodiversity and their culture; and

- Contribute to the mitigation of the negative effects of climate change through reforestation and the strengthening of the use of sustainable practices of the Bagyeli in this initiative.

This project  has so far had a significant impact on communities who now master their customary spaces  thanks to the participatory and historical mapping methods applied during the project. They now know their limits with neighbours and can access their sacred sites, hunting, fishing and fruit gathering areas with less difficulty.

 The project also helped the Bagyelli to adapt to alternative incoming generating activities like the cultivation of cocoa which is a carbon sink  contributing to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change.

On a socio-economic plane, the cocoa agroforestry scheme is contributing to reduce poverty for the Bagyelli people who planted and monitored their farms and have seen their living conditions  improved and helped in improving the nation’s increase in cocoa production and GDP.

Cultivation and consumption of the various vegetables has contributed to produce a balanced diet and a healthy lifestyle thereby reducing cases of malnutrition.

The maps produced have contributed to influence  government policy on the recognition of

customary spaces of the Bagyelli as a means to preserve their culture and traditions known to be

closely linked to the forest.

At the end of the 20 months of project implementation, it was  urgent to put in

place national policies for the socio-professional integration of the Bagyeli without altering

their age-old culture and tradition; a close monitoring of the cocoa fields put in place to help

the Bagyeli communities to successfully achieve their vision; and to continue the inter-

community dialogue in order to find definite consensual solutions to the Bagyeli’s land

issue in the Ocean division. Such were  the recommendations made at the end of the project.

(https://www.gdacameroon.org/media/attachments/2025/09/26/2017_gda_annual-report.pdf)

• Community entrepreneurship in Nkolenyeng, South region.

This was a microcredit scheme falling within the framework of GDA’s core program support launched in 2017 and intended to enable the villagers of Nkolenyeng to borrow money. It was a project involving 120 inhabitants of that village carrying out activities such as the rehabilitation of palm plantations, the purchase of pesticides and inputs for cocoa cultivation, production and marketing of local wine, small businesses and the production of bread.

When the project was over in 2018, there was an awakening of community entrepreneurship at the local level that was not very evident before then. In order to achieve this, GDA put in place a rotating fund to encourage sustainable income generating activities which would pave the way for the community to carry out micro development projects. The project contributed in building the capacities of the indigenous Bagyelli community in engaging in micro- projects that would help them address some of their basic demands. They were able to acquire some basic skills in accounting and project elaboration. This helped them to engage in activities like palm oil extraction, improved cocoa farming, production, processing and commercialization of palm wine, involvement in pretty trade activities and the baking of bread.

(see more: https://www.gdacameroon.org/media/attachments/2025/09/26/2017_gda_annual-report.pdf)

Impact monitoring of the Sangmelima-Djoum-Mintom highway construction project on Baka Communities: Djoum, Mintom, Sangmelima

This was an inter-state highway project receiving funding from a number of donors, including BADEA, BID, ADB, the Saudi Development Fund, the Kuwait Fund, Cameroon and the Republic of Congo. It was intended to link the two capitals by a 651 km cross-border road from Sangmelima in Cameroon to Ouesso in the Republic of Congo. This highway was to cross the community lands of the Baka indigenous people and was surely going to impact on their vital space and way of life.

This project documented the impacts of the road construction process not only on the Baka community but also on over 700 people living in 14 villages between Sangmelima – Djoum and Mintom. The impacts were either by having their homes or farmlands, sacred sites and tombs destroyed or having the entire displacement of some villages such as in Doum.

The project revealed the non respect of international standard procedures like the United Nation’s FPIC procedure relating to the implementation of mega projects in local and indigenous community areas. It also highlighted the very low compensations given to the impacted persons. (see more https://www.gdacameroon.org/media/attachments/2025/09/26/2017_gda_annual-report.pdf).

• Land grabbing in the Ndian and Kupe Muanenguba divisions of the SouthWest region-Cameroon.

This was a project that was intended to arrest forest conversion in the divisions herein highlighted but did unfortunately abort as a result of the outbreak of separatist activities. The initiative did however help before the suspension to raise the awareness of the local communities of Nta Ali, Bayang Mbo, Rumpi Hills and Bakossi National Park on the legal instruments relating to the protection of their natural space as well as those relating to the creation of a community forest provided for by the Forest Law of 1994 and its implementing texts. This is an activity that accounts for the security initiatives now prevalent in forest reserves in the Southwest region against threats from the expansion of agro-industrial plantations. The project successfully impacted five communities  in the Manyu, Kupe Muaneguba and Ndian divisions

( See more: https://www.gdacameroon.org/media/attachments/2025/09/26/2017_gda_annual-report.pdf)

Contribution to the Review of FLEGT - VPA legality grids.

This was an initiative to densify the regulatory framework of the forestry sector in Cameroon and negotiations between Cameroon and the European Union were underway to initiate a legality review process that was to resonate with the regulations in force in Cameroon. To attain this objective, it was necessary to integrate all the stake holders.  This is how GDA got involved in the project “support the participation of civil society and forest communities in the VPA FLEGT Legality Grids Review”. in partnership with SAILD. It was aimed at strengthening the participation of civil society in the process of reviewing legality grids. The implementation of the project made it possible to develop a consensual proposal for new legality grids. (https://www.gdacameroon.org/media/attachments/2025/09/26/2019-2020-gda-annual-report.pdf)

The Fair Frontiers Project 2022 - 2023

This is a research project designed to gather data related to ecosystem services and their usages; observe changes in the frontier area of the Campo agro industrial zone; evaluate the living standards of the communities and engage in a discourse analysis. The overall objective was to advance an understanding of the effects of  transformations in the forest-agriculture frontier on people and ecosystems;  generate evidence on the complex and interlinked ecological, political and social dynamics underlying such transformations  and provide informed policy options for equitable and sustainable development pathways.

The research findings have been published in international research reviews.

Project funded by Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RHIN)

Training Youths into Community Tenure Lawyership

This is a Community Tenure Lawyers (CTLs) project, launched in 2023 - 2025 to enhance environmental protection and the rights of communities that are often powerless to deal with the recurring land expropriation problems they encounter with either the administration or some large scale economic investors. GDA got engaged in this project in partnership with the Community Assistance in Development (COMAID.

The aim was to reinforce the capacity of young jurists, so that they could provide free environmental and social justice services to indigenous people and local communities and defend the integrity of forests in these areas in the face of growing threats.

Based on a call for applications, 10 young law graduates from diverse backgrounds, including 05 men and 05 women received a four-month in-depth training on a range of environmental and social issues susceptible to require legal assistance for indigenous peoples and local communities. They were later on deployed to various communities of the project area on internship to boost their practical skills while waiting to be sollicited by CSO’s in need of such assistance in their various communities.

Project  financed by Climate and Land Use Alliance (CLUA).

Leading the Change project  ( June 2020 - September 2025)

This is a project that has helped to reinforce the GDA implementation of its strategic plan in building, ameliorating  and reinforcing the institutional and technical capacities of civil society organizations in the sustainable management of natural resources. The project has as well contributed immensely in ensuring a greater involvement of the IPLC’s in the decisions making instances of development initiatives relating to their forest resources, forest conservation and understanding of human rights and collective action.  

The project has received financing from the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) with the technical support of WWF Cameroon and WWF Sweden.