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Given the importance of hostels to students’ welfare and academic performance and recognition of the roles youths can play for affordable university housing, this study aims to investigate hostel management problems in the Buea Municipality, an educational hub in the South West Region of Cameroon. It explores potentials for youth advocacy for affordable university housing within the process of efficient hostel management.

The data were collected through a descriptive survey design from May to July 2015 via reconnaissance surveys, field observation, photographs, administration of questionnaires to hostel tenants (students) and interviews with hostel managers and law enforcement officials. The data have been presented and analysed using descriptive statistical techniques involving frequency tables, charts and percentages. Cartographic techniques have also been used to locate the study area.

It was found that hostel management problems in Buea stem from flaws arising from both hostel managers (landlords and/or caretakers) and hostel tenants (students) in contravention to affordable student housing and good governance principles of rent control, accountability, transparency, equality, participation and fairness. The notable hostel management problems found are indiscriminate rent increase, lack of transparency in billing and non-functional sub metres and non-refund of caution deposits by hostel managers, as well as violation of hostel rules, damage of hostel facilities and “selling of rooms” by hostel tenants.

This paper contends that youths have to be mainstreamed in the hostel management process with better platforms of advocating for affordable university students’ housing through rent control and other good governance practices in their hostel setting. It is hoped that the proposed efficient hostel management system and mainstreaming youth-led advocacy activities in affordable university students’ housing will go a long way to enhance students’ welfare and academic performance, help in rent control, fight against bribery and corruption and other governance problems.

Cities across the globe, particularly those of the less developed world, face long-term challenges associated with floods which impact negatively on the resilience of city systems and their inhabitants. In the city of Maroua, most urban management stakeholders have been unable to integrate flood resilience research into urban development issues. It is against this background that the purpose of this paper is to evaluate the governance issues constraining the deployment of flood resilience strategies implemented by residents in flood-prone zones and those used by the government via administrative authorities and institutions charged with urban development to flood-related risks in the city of Maroua, Far North Region of Cameroon.

Field surveys, participant observations, interviews, and on-the-spot appraisals were carried out with residents in flood-prone neighbourhoods and municipal authorities on the state of recurrent floods including mitigating strategies being implemented.

The results revealed that Maroua has a fragile ecological setting which has increased the vulnerability of the town to flood-related risks. This is further aggravated by the fact that municipal authorities are yet to have a thorough mastery of such recurrent flood incidences due to their limited planning horizons, rendering the urban poor disproportionately susceptible to flood-related stresses. This exposes them to unavoidable flood associated hazards such as water borne diseases (typhoid and cholera) as they are bogged down by physical and financial limitations. Besides, decision-making processes in relation to managing urban systems are not guided by good governance as efforts to enhance and integrate the local population for flood resilience are neither participatory nor inclusive, ushering the urban environment of Maroua into a frivolous path to profligacy.

For resilience to be deeply entrenched, the paper proffers for the mainstreaming of flood resilience strategies into urban development plans through multi-stakeholder involvement across different sectors and departments, as well as the setting up of a practical time table for monitoring the progress of these measures through geospatial technologies such as remote sensing and geographical information systems.