The United Cities and Councils of Cameroon (UCCC) has launched a position paper on fiscal decentralisation with the assistance of CLGF. The document was presented to stakeholders including local governments, development partners and the media at a meeting in Yaounde on 21 November, by UCCC President Dr Emile Andze Andze, CLGF Project Officer Claire Frost, and David Abouem A Tchoyi who was commissioned as a consultant to put together the report.

The document is intended to help decision-makers in charge of the decentralisation process, and includes information on the Constitution on 1996, the decentralisation laws of 2004 and the country’s growth and employment strategy as well as making concrete proposals for increasing the resources available to local government so as to meet these development objectives . It looks at the how resources can be mobilised to help achieve decentralisation and recommends that, in line with many other African countries,  the government earmarks 10% of the national budget for decentralisation in 2017 with appropriate control mechanisms. UCCC is also recommending that some 2000 professional and technical experts be recruited for the local councils to meet their staffing needs to be able to deliver the basic services to meet the expectations of the people living in the local communities. 
Speaking at the launch UCC President Dr Emile Anze Andze, Mayor of Yaounde, said that UCCC is looking for a harmonious integration of centralised and decentralised models, and it was important to allocate resources both financial and staffing for councils to be able to deliver the responsibilities that have been transferred to them.
“After 20 years, I am pleased that the Constitution has been revised and that in 2016 responsibilities were transferred to local councils and a strategy has been adopted to deepen the process of decentralisation in Cameroon,” he said.