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Cameroon - Risk-sensitive Budget Review

Países
Camerún
Fuentes
UNDRR
Fecha de publicación
Origen
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Executive summary

This report presents an analysis of public investment planning and financing strategy for disaster risk reduction (DRR) in Cameroon, as part of UNDRR’s programme “Building Disaster Resilience to Natural Hazards in Sub-Saharan African Regions, Countries and Communities”. It does this through a risk-sensitive budget review (RSBR) analysis that uses the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) DRR policy marker to provide an account of public financial resources mobilized and invested in support of DRR in the 2019 financial year, through an examination of national budget data and records.

Key findings

  • Disaster risk management (DRM) is not explicitly documented in the projects, functions and/or administrative activities of Cameroon’s national budget. As such, mainstreaming of DRM and DRR in the national budget is very limited. However, applying the OECD DAC DRR policy marker, the study found 44 projects, functions or administrative activities related to DRM and DRR under 13 out of 54 ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) of the central government.

  • In the 2019 financial year, a total of $158 million – the DRR investment – was allocated in public investment plans for these DRR-related projects, functions and/or activities. This represented 3.4% of the total budget (about $4,685.9 million). Investments directly targeting DRR – “principal” investment in DRR – amounted to $89.7 million and accounted for a majority of the allocation, with 56.8%. However, this is equivalent to just 1.9% of the total planned government budget for 2019. The allocation for activities targeting DRR implicitly – “significant” investment in DRR – amounted to $68.3 million, or 43.2% of the total allocation. This is equivalent to 1.5% of the total DRR investment marked for 2019.

  • Allocations of investment to DRR are heavily concentrated in just a few institutions. Of 12 institutions with DRR-related activities, a single one, the Ministry of Health, is responsible for close to 82% of principal DRR investments. Similarly, out of seven institutions, about 78% of significant DRR investment is allocated under just one ministry, the Ministry of Water Resources and Energy.

  • DRR investments are also heavily focused on just a few of the risk categories of the DRM cycle.
    Almost all the budget allocation for principal investments (93%) is earmarked for risk mitigation and prevention activities. Similarly, budget allocations for significant investments provide the largest share (58.3%) for risk mitigation and prevention. Thus for 2019, allocations for DRR are more focused on disaster mitigation and prevention activities than on relief and reconstruction i.e. on pre-disaster activities rather than on post-disaster activities.

  • There is a heavy reliance on donor funding for principal DRR investments. In a three-year period from 2015 to 2017, donors spent an average of $81 million per annum on principal DRR activities in Cameroon, which accounts for almost all the principal investments budgeted in the 2019 financial year. Almost the whole of the donor budget (98.4%) was used to finance emergency response activities.

  • With the goal of mainstreaming and institutionalizing DRR, the authorities in Cameroon need to conduct awareness campaigns across government institutions and aimed at the general public on the imperative of mainstreaming DRR.