“Le Cameroun des Grands Ambitions”: The Place for the Youth in Cameroon’s “Vision 2035” to become an Emerging Economy in 2035

Abstract

In Africa, youth constitute majority of the population and are at the centre of societal interactions and transformations. Yet they are often placed at the margins of the public sphere and major political, socio-economic, and cultural processes. Many have little or no access to education, employment and livelihoods, healthcare and basic nutrition. Despite the segregation and difficulties they face, youth are often actively participating in constructing their own identities, and in many ways contributing to the transformative process of their societies. African youth have the capacity to fracture public space, and reinvent or even bypass it. This article is a theoretical critical analysis of the place for the youth in the process of transforming Cameroon into an emerging economy by the year 2035. The essence is to determine the extent to which today’s youth in Cameroon, who constitute the hope of the country, are given opportunity to be part of the making of the future of their nation. This is particularly imperative for Cameroon, given that the purported development agenda is pioneered by today’s leadership, largely constituted by the older generation. The underlying question is: who should dream for tomorrow’s Cameroon? The young or the old? If it is the young, how much space do they occupy in the making of the future of Cameroon? To answer these questions, this article makes a critical analysis of President Biya’s “Le Cameroun des Grands Ambitions” policy, embedded in the “vision 2035” framework, to transform Cameroon into an emerging economy by 2035.

Keywords: Grands Ambitions, Youth, Vision 2035, Emerging Economy