Economie

Cameroon’s CDEC: a strategic driver for infrastructure financing

Cameroon, much like many developing economies across Africa, has contended with shrinking access to traditional external funding sources for several years. Concessional multilateral loans, official development assistance, and increasingly expensive international bond markets have become less accessible. In this challenging environment, harnessing domestic public and private savings emerges as a critical strategic imperative. This pivotal role is precisely what the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations (CDEC) in Cameroon is designed to fulfill, having been officially operationalized on January 20, 2023, by presidential decree, fifteen years after its legal establishment through a 2008 law.

Understanding the CDEC’s crucial role

As observer Patrick Duprix Anicet Mani highlights, the economic landscape for Cameroon and numerous other African nations has been characterized by a noticeable tightening of conventional external financing avenues. This includes a reduction in concessional multilateral loans, diminished public development aid, and increasingly expensive international bond markets. Within this challenging framework, the strategic importance of mobilizing internal savings, both public and private, cannot be overstated. This is precisely the core function of Cameroon’s Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations (CDEC), an institution that officially commenced operations on January 20, 2023, via presidential decree, marking its operational launch fifteen years after its legal inception in 2008.

An established blueprint: insights from the French Caisse des Dépôts

The extensive experience of the French Caisse des Dépôts serves as a compelling testament to how a national deposit fund can effectively convert dormant savings into a powerful engine for structural development. This is achieved through a multi-pronged approach:

– Centralization of regulated funds: This involves pooling resources such as Livret A savings accounts, notarial funds, and inactive accounts within a secure public institution.

– Transformation of short-term deposits into long-term loans: Backed by state guarantees, these funds are then channeled into extended financing initiatives.

– Leverage effect: Critically, every euro of centralized savings is strategically deployed to finance vital structural infrastructures, encompassing social housing, urban regeneration projects, fiber optic networks, and essential transportation systems.

Cameroon’s CDEC is designed to mirror this successful operational model. Its fundamental mission is to gather, safeguard, and ensure the long-term profitability of resources that typically remain unutilized, strategically directing them to support key public policies and national development objectives.

CDEC’s progress: measurable growth and impact

Available data clearly indicates that CDEC is already demonstrating significant momentum:

Legal framework and mobilizable resource categories

The foundational 2008 law and its 2011 implementing decree meticulously define CDEC’s resource structure across four distinct categories: general deposits (including notary funds and dormant bank accounts), administrative consignments (such as bonds for public contracts), judicial consignments (like bail payments and court settlements), and a fourth category of assimilated funds.

Enforced collection mechanism

To ensure robust resource mobilization, a Prime Minister’s decree issued on December 1, 2023, imposed a strict deadline on banks, insurance companies, notaries, and court registries for the transfer of their consigned funds. Non-compliance with this directive carries severe penalties, including external audits and the imposition of late interest calculated at the BEAC marginal lending facility rate plus two points. This stringent legal framework is designed to secure and accelerate the accumulation of CDEC’s essential resources.

Three-year performance review

Director General Richard Evina Obam recently announced that CDEC has successfully centralized over 151 billion FCFA (approximately 260 million USD) within three years of its operational launch. While this figure represents a substantial achievement, it remains proportionally well below the identified potential, with earlier estimates suggesting that more than 1,000 billion FCFA could be lying dormant within the Cameroonian banking system. This highlights the ongoing need for effective collection strategies as CDEC continues to grow and strengthen the national economy.

The transformation vehicle: a dedicated banking subsidiary

The most crucial element underpinning CDEC’s ambitious infrastructure development goals is the planned creation of a dedicated banking subsidiary, for which a feasibility study was initiated in February 2025. This specialized financial institution is explicitly designed to:

– Provide essential support to the State, decentralized territorial communities (CTDs), and private enterprises in raising capital for crucial infrastructure projects.

– Offer robust backing to Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) aiming to participate in public procurement contracts.

– Streamline initial public offerings (IPOs) and facilitate the thorough evaluation of new business opportunities.

– Develop and offer a suite of long-term financial products, including loans, guarantees, and leasing solutions, specifically tailored to the needs of Cameroonian economic actors.

This strategic function is what structurally aligns CDEC with the