Why Cameroon Imports Solutions It Could Be Building

Is this not precisely the kind of problem that one of Cameroon's innovation hubs should have been

tasked with solving? Is this not how jobs are created while addressing real persistent

economic challenges? On the surface, both the digital vest initiative and the innovation

hubs fall neatly under the banner of the National Development Strategy 2030.

In practice, they reveal what the strategy lacks most: a unifying logic that links

problems to solutions and solutions to one another. Instead of importing European-funded

digital vests, Cameroon's innovation could have been tasked with building them.

The problem was already clear: an informal transport sector, safety risks,