By Boris Esono Nwenfor
YAOUNDE, PAV – Central African policymakers, researchers, civil society leaders and private-sector representatives have been urged to move beyond diagnosing the region’s problems and translate evidence into practical action capable of improving people’s lives.
The call came as the 2026 Central Africa Think Tank Forum opened in Yaoundé under the theme “From Evidence to Action: Strengthening Policy Uptake in Central Africa.”
Organised by the Nkafu Policy Institute, a think tank of the Denis and Lenora Foretia Foundation, the two-day forum brings together policymakers, researchers, think tanks, development partners, civil society organisations and private-sector actors to examine why evidence often fails to translate into effective public policy.
A space for advancing Central Africa sub-region
Dr Denis Foretia, co-chair of the Denis and Lenora Foretia Foundation and Executive Chairman of the Nkafu Policy Institute, said the forum was intended to create a space where different actors could work together to identify practical strategies for advancing the Central African sub-region.
“The important thing about forums like this is to ensure that we have our policymakers, the researchers, the policy practitioners, civil society organisations, and other young leaders involved,” Dr Denis Foretia said.
He said the forum had placed a greater emphasis on action this year, arguing that identifying problems was no longer sufficient. “Diagnosing the problem that we have in our sub-region is not enough. We need to take action, and action requires collective interventions from different stakeholders,” he said.
Dr Denis Foretia identified decent jobs, regional integration and prosperity as key priorities for the region, asking how Central African countries could create more employment opportunities, deepen integration and improve living standards.
He also pointed to the persistent challenge of translating existing research into concrete policy decisions. “How do we ensure that the evidence that we already know, we already have, translates to policy in concrete terms?” he asked.
Dr Denis Foretia cited the need for stronger public health institutions in Cameroon as an example of how evidence could be converted into practical policy, pointing to the potential role of a national public health institute in identifying and responding to disease outbreaks.
Nathan Ntaten Wuli, Inspector General and representative of the Minister of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, Social Economy and Handicrafts, said supporting small and medium-sized enterprises was essential to strengthening Cameroon’s economy.
He said SMEs and micro-enterprises account for about 99% of enterprises in the country and therefore could not be overlooked in efforts to create employment and generate wealth.
The government, he said, remained committed to initiatives aimed at helping small businesses grow and contribute to the objectives of the country’s National Development Strategy 2030.
‘We must transform what we have’
Dr Esther Omam, Executive Director of Reach Out Cameroon, said Central Africa had considerable natural and human resources but was failing to turn them into broad-based prosperity. She criticised the continued export of raw materials and the subsequent import of expensive finished products, saying the model deprived local communities of opportunities to create value and employment.
“We have the resources in their raw forms, we are sending them out, exporting them and then we are importing very rich finished products,” Omam said calling for greater investment in local processing, infrastructure and digitalisation, while urging governments to make better use of the region’s human capital.
Dr Omam also highlighted the exclusion of women and young people from economic opportunities and decision-making, alongside insecurity, fragile institutions, weak coordination, poor governance and limited accountability.
For her, development required a clearer distribution of responsibility among governments, development partners, researchers, think tanks, civil society organisations and communities.
“The government has its own responsibility, development partners have their own responsibilities, the think tank and researchers have their own responsibilities, civil society has its own responsibility, the communities have their own responsibilities,” she said, urging stakeholders to stop shifting blame and instead ask what each could contribute to the region’s development.
The 2026 Central Africa Think Tank Forum is expected to examine practical ways of strengthening the link between research and policy, with participants seeking approaches that can make public policy more responsive, accountable and capable of delivering tangible improvements across Central Africa.
