The Influence of Non Governmental Organizations in Poverty Alleviation

In Africa, poverty is a rural phenomenon, a situation that is also true of other world regions. In Cameroon, poverty alleviation programs disproportionately favor rural and semi-urban areas, ignoring rural-urban Interplay. Even when significant proportion of the population move to and live in urban areas and urban-ward migration continues, they are often still "present" in the rural areas. Cameroon falls among the group of African countries where a majority of the population lives below the line of poverty. Considering the global economic hardship coupled with socio-cultural and political problems in Cameroon, many Cameroonians presently are not only unable to afford their basic necessities of life, but also find it difficult rising above the line of poverty. Despite the Cameroon Forestry policy implementation against forest exploitation and the numerous alternative income-generating activities introduced and encouraged by government and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) to conserve the forest, very little attention has been paid to the process of benefit sharing to the local communities to ensure effective participation.