President Paul Biya on Official Visit to France

The President of the Republic of Cameroon is currently on an official visit to France with his wife Chantal Biya. This is from an invitation from French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The French were the main colonial masters of this central African nation that gained independence in 1960 and the relationship between the two nations have stayed cordial ever since. In the two major cities in the Republic of Cameroon, which are Douala and Yaoundé, a lot of the major infrastructures are all built by the French. They are also the main source of external support to this nation.

The relationship though between the citizens is a little bit strained in my opinion. Part of the reason being that quite a few individuals that need visas to go to France for one reason or another have to go through a rigorous process in order to obtain one. In a lot of cases they are flat out refused one. The individuals from this nation thought still fight hard to try and get to France in hope of bettering their economic situation. Economics is the primary reason for most of the individuals here trying to migrate to France, thought there are also cases of people going for medical and business purposes.

In the long term, the individuals of this nation and all of Africa as a whole have to seriously start to look for solutions for their own problems. That would be the way for them to get out of the situation in which most of the nations find themselves in. Foreign aid comes with a lot of baggage attach to it and after years and years of continuous borrowing from industrialized nations and organizations such as the World bank and the International Monetary Fund, the nations in this part of the world are still lacking in terms of development. A couple of years ago, before the economic crisis hit the world, the World Bank and a few industrialized nations started a program of debt forgiveness. The program was called HIPC.HIPC stands for heavily indebted Poor nations. There was a lot of noise when the announcement was made and this nation was amongst those selected for their debts to be forgiven. Some of the nations that miss the cut complained that they were being punished for paying back their debts on time and that the nations that were selected would just go back to their old ways of borrowing and spending. I have been around this nation now since 2005 and I am yet to see that mark that the program left. I do not see any good use that the money was put into. There is very little talk now about HPIC funds and I am afraid that the funds from the program have probably just disappeared.

People of this nation have to start looking for other alternatives to solve their problems. There is a little bit of this going on now as individuals have been flooding other foreign embassies such as the US and Great Britain. They are looking for a place to migrate to or to go further their education. Financial aid is also provided by these two countries. The Italians, the Dutch and the Chinese are also present in the country providing one some of assistance or the other.

Not all the foreign nationals that are in the country are for aid. Quite a few are there for investment. Something that the government encourages as the investment would provide employment of one form or the other to the inhabitants in this nation.

The Chinese are in Douala, the economic capital of this nation and they are the most recent of the arrivals. They came in around the early 1990s and they are now involved in activities ranging from shop owners to fishermen in the seas around the area. It is funny how some individuals here are struggling to get out this nation to go overseas and yet you get people like the Chinese coming in and going what the locals here are involved in. Some of them come and get Cameroonian nationality.