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This paper aims to explore the responses of households in the informal economic sector to the Cameroon Government strategy against Covid-19 in Yaounde, Cameroon between March and May 2020.

Given the recency of Covid-19, the exploratory design was used to collect and analyse information for the study. Empirical data was obtained through personal observations and questionnaires, whereas grey data were sourced from official sources in government and international agencies in Yaounde. The mode of the ordinal data generated from the questionnaire was used to characterise the attitudes of respondents to quarantine measures and bar charts were used to illustrate the distribution of responses.

The government’s strategy against Covid-19 was largely ignored in Yaounde between March and May 2020 because of the influence of the predominantly informal economy on household’s ability to allocate scarce resources between the competing needs of protecting their health on the one hand, and their livelihoods on the other hand. Poor households had to walk a difficult line between shutting down their businesses to protect their health or risking Covid-19 infections to protect their livelihoods. Over 53.1% of respondents thought quarantine measures were unsuccessful as over 63% ignored them. Quarantining and Social distancing were also difficult in informal settlements because of structural congestion.

Perhaps, the greatest limitation of this study was the use of non-probability sampling. As such, sampling error could not be estimated, blurring the ability to ascertain the degree of similarity between the sample and the study population. This made sample generalisability difficult.

There are short-term and long-term policy implications of these findings. Basic comprehensive measures including food and water distribution, as well as rent holidays, must be implemented in informal neighbourhoods to ensure more successful quarantines in future pandemics. In the long run, investments in urban social housing must be carried out to reduce slums, an ever-present risk factor in the rapid propagation of infections.

The originality of this study is first, in its level of analysis which is the household. By measuring household responses to quarantine measures within defined neighbourhoods, the study deviates from most that have adopted a theoretical approach and conducted analysis at country or regional levels. Few studies have attempted to investigate the failure of quarantine measures against Covid-19 from the viewpoint of the occupational characteristics of the populations involved.

This chapter addresses urban food provisioning through a case study of banana plantain production, distribution, and consumption centering around two Cameroonian villages – Koumou and Oban. Recent and rapid urban population growth in Cameroon has brought attention to the issue of urban food supply, which has always been assured by a traditional organization of numerous small operators and which has proven to be more effective overall than initiatives adopted by public authorities. This chapter identifies the actors involved in urban food provisioning systems in Cameroon and highlights the often underlooked role played by cultural and social factors within the economy of food.

The purpose of this paper is contribution to estimate the potential of wind energy in Douala in Cameroon, by modeling and predicting the regime of wind. The paper deals with the analysis and comparison of seven numerical methods for the assessment of effectiveness in determining the parameters for the Weibull distribution, using wind speed data collected at Douala International Airport in Cameroon, in the period from September 2011 to May 2013, obtained by meteorological equipment belonging to the Laboratory of Energy Research of the Institute of Geological and Mining Research.

By using ANOVA, root mean square error and chi-square tests to compare the proposed methods, this study aims to determine which methods are effective in determining the parameters of the Weibull distribution for the available data, in an attempt to establish acceptable criteria for better usage of wind power in Douala, which is the economic capital and ought to have prominence in the use of renewable sources for electricity generation in Cameroon.

The study helps to determine that moment, empirical and energy pattern factor methods used to determine the shape parameter k and the scale parameter c of the Weibull distribution present a better curve fit with the histogram of the wind speed. This fact is clearly validated by means of the statistical tests. But, all the seven methods gave excellent performance. Then, k reaching levels ranging from 3.5 to 5.5 and c range from 1.7 to 2.4.

Then as far as we are concerned, for a significant contribution, it could be more effective to have a model for prediction of wind characteristics using wind data collected per hour, one at least three years. A comparison of results obtained from lots of other methods (seven in this case) is necessary before an efficient discussion. Standard deviations and errors between measured and predicted data must also be presented.

In the field of information systems, workflow modelling has attracted a lot of researchers. Most works in the domain do not take into consideration the concrete execution of resulting workflows. This failure puts beside the time and resource concepts. The aim of this paper is to develop a model that allows to deal with the execution of workflows based on the constraints of the resources.

Based on the domain engineering approach, one describes models of a business processes, and resources in an incremental manner. At each step of the modelling, one defines some requirements for the validation of the models.

The formalization gives the core features that are suitable to deal with the organisational aspect of business process management. These features are generic as they can be extended to capture the representation of various stages in the resource and business process management.

This paper does not deal with the concrete assignment of tasks to resources, and does not show how these features can be refined in order to model real world business processes. This work can be extended by defining some case studies, developing a supporting tool and carrying analysis.

By applying these models in daily work, enterprises will improve their productivity and deal with the competitive pressure of the network economy.

This paper defines an ontological framework for the business process, resource and correctness of a workflow within an enterprise that may be used by enterprise managers in the delivery of goods and services.

Relations between the European Union (EU) and African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) states date back to the 1960s. Brexit has also affected relations between the European Union and African-Caribbean and Pacific states. While the impact of Brexit on the EU is evident, the United Kingdom's exit from the EU has begun the process of renegotiation with African-Caribbean and Pacific states. The main objective of the study is to highlight the relationship between the ACP states, the United Kingdom, and the EU for the pre- and post-Brexit period. First, the historical process between the EU and the African-Caribbean and Pacific states was mentioned, and then an attempt was made to examine the consequences of Brexit for the United Kingdom, the European Union, and the related countries.

Cameroon’s contemporary legislative and institutional frameworks for disaster risk management (DRM) encapsulate the concept of Civil Protection (CP). Diverse disaster risk profile and high incidence/frequency of co-occurring natural and human-induced hazards are intimately linked to increasing vulnerability and fragile economy, transforming hazards into emergencies, crises and disasters, with dire livelihood consequences. To curb growing disaster risks, the Cameroon government instituted basic legislative and institutional frameworks for DRM, through top-down hierarchical, and ex post decision-making processes. Existing frameworks combine multi-hazard, multi-stakeholder and multidisciplinary/agency approaches. Inertia, limited foresight and proactiveness, innovation capacity and limited stakeholder involvement have rendered DRM ineffective. Existing DRM instruments are vague and not explicit. DRM lags behind a rapidly evolving disaster risk profile, and implementation is scattered across ministries/agencies, rendering cross-sectoral cooperation and coordination difficult. Although Cameroon is a signatory to many international disaster risk reduction (DRR)/DRM frameworks, and frequently participates in international DRR/DRM events, implementation of international agreements leaves much to be desired. The Directorate of Civil Protection – Cameroon’s sole legislative DRM institution is marred by bureaucracy, centralisation and insufficient power to perform. There is an urgent need to overhaul existing legislation and institutional frameworks for effective DRM in Cameroon.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the efficiency of vegetable farmers within the tree-crop based rainforest agro-ecological zone in Southwest region of Cameroon.

The non-parametric data envelopment analysis method was used to evaluate technical and scale efficiencies while the Tobit model was used to identify factors affecting efficiency of vegetable production.

An econometric analysis result indicates that family size, education and extension service have significant impact on both technical and scale efficiencies, whereas credit service has significant impact on scale efficiency.

Future agricultural policies could include measures to improve the capacity of farmers to efficiently use existing resources.

The study highlighted that encouraging more people to engage in farm labor and facilitating smallholder access to microcredit could render vegetable farmers more efficient.

In Cameroon, only a few studies have been conducted on technical efficiency. These encompass mainly cash and food crops. To the best of our knowledge, no single study has measured technical efficiency of vegetable farmers in forest-based farming of Cameroon.

This paper aims to examine the contribution of forests resource systems to the different aspects of community well-being, the implications of climate variability on the different sources of well-being and further identifies direct and indirect social and policy opportunities relevant for communities to enhance their capabilities in the face of climate variability and change in the Tri-National de la Sangha landscape of Cameroon.

It illustrates on data collected from focus group discussions and from 151 households randomly selected in three villages to operationalize the conceptual links between community well-being and vulnerability.

The study shows that vulnerability to climate change interferes with community strategies to achieve well-being, in addition to non-climatic processes which are both internal and external to communities. The study further indicates that healthy forest ecosystems provide opportunities for the local folks to build assets, improve food security, improve health and reduce risks. However, this requires capacity building and the channeling of resources to the local level, in addition to win–win sectoral policy amendments.

Biophysical methods required to complement community perceptions on the suitability of forest resource systems to climate variability.

This paper argues that appropriate strategies which aim at improving well-being needs to capture the role of forest ecosystems, climate change risks and uncertainty and macroeconomic and social processes.

This study contributes to the literature on the relationship between climate risk and the well-being of forest communities. This is relevant for practitioners and policy makers to reflect on the risk of climate change and the rationale for conserving forest resources for community well-being in the post-2015 Millennium Development Goals conclusions.

The Convention signed at Lomé on 28 February 1975 between the nine members of the European Economic Community and forty‐six developing countries, known as the ACP States, has been hailed as an important advance in economic cooperation between rich and poor nations. Not only has the number of countries associated with the EEC been raised from the nineteen involved in the earlier Yaoundé Convention, but the ACP countries as a group now appear to enjoy more favourable provisions for trade and aid than those obtained under earlier agreements. Among the new ACP States is Ethiopia, a country neither connected with the EEC through previous arrangements nor having any historical links with Europe apart from a brief period of colonial rule by the Italians during 1936–41. The objective of this paper is to examine the implications of the provisions of the Lomé Convention in relation to Ethiopia. In addition to addressing the major question of local concern, i.e. whether or not Ethiopia is likely to benefit from association, a case study of this country is of more widespread interest. The lessons for Ethiopia may be applicable to other countries with similar circumstances. In addition, on the grounds of absolute poverty the Lomé Convention provides preferential treatment in some areas for certain of the least developed ACP countries, of which Ethiopia is one. The likely benefits of association for Ethiopia may serve, therefore, as an indicator of the extent of the EEC's commitment to assisting the ACP States, and the least developed in particular.