An Evaluation of European Union Development Aid to the Democratization Project in Cameroon

ABSTRACT

As a way of deepening democracy, the European Union (EU) has dedicated substantial financial and technical assistance to Cameroon’s civil society and election process. More than two decades after the adoption of multipartism, there is, however, the lack of a credible institutional framework for democratization in the country. This analysis of mainly primary sources draws on donor–recipient relations theory to provide a critical assessment of the EU’s aid to the democratization process in Cameroon. The article argues that the overemphasis on elections as a catalyst for orchestrating broader changes has instead given the Yaounde regime room to maneuver by failing to genuinely embrace democratization. Besides the worrying lack of institutional reforms, weaknesses embedded in the EU’s aid architecture and its member state’s self-interests have significantly compromised the effectiveness of its development assistance program in Cameroon and most of the Third World. The study suggests that the EU should recognize elections as a multifaceted process involving a complex cycle of myriad events and legal, technical, and organizational processes.

KEYWORDS:

• Development aid
• aid conditionality
• democratization
• good governance
• Cameroon
• Third World
• European Union

Introduction

In sub-Saharan Africa, the equating of aid with democratic reforms not only has a longstanding precedent¹ but has since the 1990s received heightened attention in the wake of calls for democratic reforms.² Not much is known, however, about the seemingly unpalatable hypothesis that foreign aid entrenches autocratic rule in “donor darling” African countries receiving substantial aid volumes—Angola, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Mozambique, Uganda, and even Cameroon—with their questionable democratic credentials and eroding respect for human rights and political freedoms. The puzzle as eloquently framed by Tobias Hagmann and Filip Reyntjens in their edited volume Aid and Authoritanism in Africa: Development without Democracy is “Why do donors not support, but also align their policy agendas with authoritarian rulers who reject the very liberal democratic values that Western donors endorse?”³

Under donor pressure and Western-imposed structural adjustment programs (SAPs), the country jumped onto the democratic train but is still not a model of political liberalization and reforms.⁴ The willingness of the ruling party (Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement; CPDM) “to resort to fraud, massive use of corruption, and repression all combined to make Cameroon’s political liberalization a deeply flawed process that lingers today, making politics something of a sick joke in the country.”⁵ Why does the EU continue to support democratic reforms in Cameroon despite concerns over the institutional framework and the hotly contested outcome of various elections organized since the advent of multipartism?

This study aims to assess the apparent ineffectiveness of EU aid to the democratization and good governance project in Cameroon. It draws on two case studies of EU democracy and good governance funded programs—the Support Programme for the Restructuring of Cameroon’s Civil Society (Programme d´Appui à la Structuration de la société Civile (PASOC au Cameroun) and the Electoral Process Support Fund. It relies on documentary data analysis and insights as a participant observer of Cameroon’s political landscape. The main data collection methods consist of desk review of primary sources—agreements between the African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) countries and the EU, norms and EU legal documents and secondary sources, as well as an evaluation of EU policies and programs in the field of human rights and democracy.

Our theoretical approach integrates insights from recent research on donor–recipient relations in contemporary Africa. According to McKinlay and Little’s classical dichotomy that has since held sway, explanatory paradigms of development assistance hover around donor interest and recipient need. The former points to the predominance of donor’s foreign policy interest/objectives in the explanation of the development aid relationship.⁶ This could include Cameroon’s colonial ties with France that have shielded the Yaounde regime from genuine democratization by providing it with aid. Aid is perceived as an instrument of foreign policy, as “an integral part of the political policies of the giving country,” and as being in line with that country’s foreign policy objectives.⁷ As Mckinlay aptly states, “aid provides the utilities of commitment and dependence which the donor can employ in the pursuit of its foreign policy objectives.”⁸ Although recent studies point out that recipient needs have an impact, they, however, continue to report the influence of the donor interests. This suggests the near convergence of the two sets of motivations.⁹ Contrary to this realist vision, recipient needs paradigms (idealists) informed views of international relations (IR) emphasize humanitarian motives (“doing good,” acting out of sympathy) related to conceptions of international justice. They concede that donor countries seek to alleviate poverty and improve on the quality of life and wellbeing of the marginalized.¹⁰

Different authoritarian states have different amounts of “‘negotiating capital’”¹¹ vis-à-vis Western governments and multilateral development partners. They therefore have variegated room to maneuver with different donors, including the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), and European Commission (EC). These donors are also revising their earlier positions on democratization and human rights reforms to more narrow and easily quantifiable “developmental” objectives that instead tend to curtail freedom.¹² The second motive underpinning this shift is competition from so-called emerging donors who, unlike traditional European donors, have no regard for democratic and good governance reforms (particularly China, India, Brazil, and others). Aid is not based on altruism, but rather on self-interest. Myriad factors therefore account for why autocratic regimes continue to receive aid—political, economic, colonial past, cultural, geostrategic, self-interests, economic effects on domestic economies, ideological proximity, the maintenance of aid budgets, as well as multiple other domestic and international factors.¹³ “Where bilateral relations are close, tied up with donors’ own strategic or economic interests, then the effectiveness of aid conditionality is compromised.”¹⁴ Donor motives cannot be divorced from the quantity of the recipient governments’ “negotiating capital” (behavior and assets)¹⁵ as well as elite bargain between recipient countries and donor countries doling out aid to authoritarian regimes even against public opinion in the donor country.¹⁶ The donor–patron relationship between France and Cameroon that greatly undermines democratization is illustrative of this.¹⁷

There is an endless debate about aid and democracy based on two competing positions. One school maintains that institutional reforms should precede aid. In other words, African governments should show genuine commitment to the fight against corruption as a conditio sine qua non for continuous aid disbursement. The other camp concedes that aid and development assistance should be contingent on progress “giving aid to governments with broken institutions is akin to throwing money out [of] the window, and offers no incentive to African governments to get their institutional houses in order.”¹⁸ Larry Diamond, one of the leading scholars on democratization in the Global South, asserted that Western donors “were independently coming to the conclusion that economic development could not be pursued in isolation from concern for accountable and responsive governance and that development assistance to African dictatorships had generally proved a disastrous failure.”¹⁹ The US and France pioneered the push for anticorruption and democratization at the beginning of the 1990s through deep cuts in aid to African “big men”—their former close allies to whom they had been doling out financial and military support during the decades of the Cold War. The democratic tornado that began with the collapse of the Russian empire in Eastern Europe has instead “swept in democracies bearing all kinds of qualifying prefixes such as quasi, pseudo or unconsolidated”²⁰ “electoral dictatorships,” “competitive authoritarianism,” and “hybrid regimes.”²¹ Other qualifications used to describe this dismal state of affairs include “stuck in transition” “political meltdown,” and “hybrid regimes.”²² This also includes Paul Biya’s version of “La Démocratie advancé” (advanced democracy²³) in Cameroon. Why have African countries including Cameroon paid lip service to democratization and anti-corruption?

In the remainder of the article, we first set the dynamic context of Cameroon–EU relations characterized by the end of the Cold War, the globalization of the world’s economy, especially China’s policy of “going abroad,” and the ensuing scramble for raw materials occasioned by this development in aid–recipient relationships given that China has no regard for democracy and good governance. Furthermore, the prioritization of security, stability, and economic interest (trade) over democracy and human rights by the West in the post-9/11 context of terrorism makes Cameroon a strategic partner (with enormous “negotiating capital”²⁴) in the turbulent Central African region. Second, we examine the linking of democracy (as good governance) and development by multilateral donors as the benchmark solution to Africa’s myriad development problems motivated by changes in the external European environment but also by internal EU reforms that led to the embedding of democracy in all policies, programs, and projects. Third, through the prism of two EU-funded democratization and good governance reform projects, we attempt an evaluation of the EU’s role in fostering a democratic culture in Cameroon against the backdrop of the lack of a credible institutional framework. Fourth, the conclusion follows.

Two main arguments underpin the article. First, securing Europe’s political and economic vested interests given the changing economic and strategic international environment—the globalization of the world´s economy, China’s policy of “going abroad” to Africa, and the subsequent scramble for raw materials that this development has occasioned is crucial. These changes in the external environment obliged the EU to reassert itself on the global stage through the rhetoric of the promotion of democracy and good governance reforms. In the words of Patrick J. Ganahl, the promotion of democratic reforms in Africa in general and Cameroon in particular is “a matter of self-interested calculation” whose basis is realpolitik.²⁵ Second, although interested in deepening democracy and good governance through funding and training for civil society actors even when the results are not palpable, the EU’s democracy assistance program has been limited by a conjuncture between lack of political will and factors embedded in the structure of the EU’s aid architecture. The former is evidenced by the lack of a credible institutional framework for genuine democracy to take roots in Cameroon. In the latter, the interests of individual member states of the EU, especially France, in Cameroon is at variance with the collective interests of members of the EU. Despite its weaknesses, the EU’s democracy assistance program cannot be downplayed. However, it is evident that change has to come from within Cameroon and that external actors can only help in pushing the momentum of this change. Members of the EU cannot really bring about change because of the competing self-seeking interests of its individual members as international actors.

Background: Cameroon–European Union relations in context

Several reasons explain the choice of Cameroon for studying EU–African relations in the present dynamic global context: the country’s strategic location, its economic might in the regional economy, and the volume of its trade with the EU. Cameroon occupies a strategic position between the Atlantic Ocean and the enclaved countries of Central Africa (Tchad, the Central African Republic, and the North of Congo-Brazaville). The country is located at the center of the continent, has a diverse relief and climate—representing all climatic zones in Africa, has huge mineral and agricultural resources (its bargaining power), and a multicultural heritage as well as well-trained human resource base that makes it “Africa in miniature.” Furthermore, more than 60 percent of Cameroon’s external trade is undertaken with countries of the EU.²⁶

Cameroon is also an important regional player in the economy of the Central African region: its gross domestic product (GDP) accounts for half that of the Central African Economic Community (CEMAC).²⁷ As articulated in the Country Strategy Paper for Cameroon (2008–2013), under the strategic framework for cooperation with the European Commission (EC), which constitutes part of the 10th European Development Fund (EDF), the two main areas of EU assistance are governance as well as trade and regional integration. EU funding and technical support is expected to contribute to the consolidation of the rule of law and transparency in the management of public finances as well as to the reliability and transparency of elections. Additionally, it will serve to improve forestry governance and the sustainable management of natural resources. Other priority areas include rural development, decentralization, as well as aid to non-state actors (NSAs) (civil society). Under the 10th EDF, the EU allocated €250 million to address these priorities by incorporating cross-cutting issues including gender, the environment, and human rights (with emphasis on the semi-nomadic Pygmy people) as well as the prevention of HIV/AIDS and malaria.²⁸

Found in West-Central Africa, Cameroon was until 2016, when an internal rebellion pitted the central government against Anglophone separatist/pro-independence groups, an oasis of peace in the turbulent West African region. The country is a former German and, latter, Franco-British territory. Cameroon is one of the ACP countries, which consists of 77 countries excluding South Africa²⁹; the ACP maintains trade and diplomatic relations with the EU. Central Africa enjoys a surplus in terms of trade balance with the EU. The EU mainly exports industrial goods and vehicles, while Central Africa’s main exports include oil (over 65 percent of Central African exports), raw minerals, diamonds, aluminum, and tropical agricultural products (cocoa, wood, rubber, bananas, coffee).³⁰ The ACP treaty was an outcome of the Georgetown Agreement of 1975 that brings together countries in Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific realm with the main aim of ensuring sustainable development and poverty reduction among member states, as well as ensuring their greater integration into the global economy. All signatories but Cuba are also signatories to the Cotonou Agreement with the EU. The Cotonou Agreement (June 2000) replaced the Lomé Conventions, and it has been expanded to include civil society, the private sector, trade unions, and local authorities as new development actors. As stakeholders, they are involved in consultations and in the planning of development strategies, have access to financial resources, and take part in program implementation.³¹

Cameroon’s relations with the European Community (EC, later EU) dates as far back as 1967. The EU alongside its member states tops the chart for trade and development aid to Cameroon. Cooperation ties between both international actors took a great leap forward on July 16, 2001, marked by the signing of a new partnership accord through which the EU pledged to vigorously support Cameroon’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Programme in the domain of road infrastructural development (so as to spur socioeconomic development), institutional reforms, health, rural development, environment, decentralization, and human rights.³²

Apart from maintaining Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with the EU, due to the expiration of the Cotonou Agreement on December 31, 2007 Cameroon singlehandedly negotiated a broader regional economic agreement with the organization. In doing so, Cameroon, however, reneged on its commitment with the five countries of the CEMAC—Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon—and accepted an EPA with the EU. CEMAC member states had earlier met in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea and decided they would only sign an agreement that is fair and balanced. By reneging on the deal and ratifying its existing EPA, it lost the 600 billion CFA francs (USD 1 billion, 895 million euros) in custom duties and is therefore at a disadvantage compared to member states of the EU.³³ Cameroon lacks developed industries that can compete with European industries. A trade imbalance is more or less unavoidable. While Cameroon exports agricultural products, European countries export already finalized products. The EPA is clearly a drive in favor of the “capitalist mode of production which benefits the capitalist states but not the peripheral states in the world’s economy.”³⁴ The EPA defeats one of the original aims of the EPAs, which was to encourage the ACP countries to negotiate with EU in regional groupings rather than individually. Cameroon, a country notorious for corruption, continues to display a worrying lack of progress toward genuine democratization. This situation has variously been eloquently summed up thus: “Cameroon can neither be considered a liberal democracy or operating under the rule of law nor as a socially responsible market economy.”³⁵

The democracy and development nexus

The promotion of democracy is a cornerstone of EU foreign and security policy because development cannot succeed without democratic governance. According to the EU, successful development also requires a true and vital partnership with African nations³⁶ through development aid. Although an intricate relationship has been identified between development and democratization as well as socioeconomic development and democracy,³⁷ experiences from Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Africa tend to suggest that establishing and consolidating democracy is dependent on other variables,³⁸ including a vibrant civil society and institutional building. Paradoxically, even with increasing aid from the donor community, there is searing poverty in Cameroon. This suggests the need for institutional reforms.³⁹ It should be pointed out that because of Cameroon’s natural resources and therefore political leverage, it was able to cherry-pick projects funded by donors. “Since the beginning of the 1990s, overseas development assistance” accounted for an estimated 4–10 percent of GNI, and since 2009, with an estimated 600 million USD per annum, it accounted for some 2.5 percent of the country’s GNI.⁴⁰ While this implies that Cameroon is not overly reliant on donor funds, and that donors have little political leverage, they remain significant to national politics. Furthermore, donors and aid recipients have a mutual interest of sustaining stable relationships that go beyond economic or strategic interests.⁴¹ To achieve their aims, donors interact with myriad locals actors—political parties, state institutions, and civil society—with different quotients of material and symbolic resources by attempting to shape the field of national politics, certify elections as credible, and provide “empirical legitimacy” for the government even in the face of the lingering weak popular legitimacy of the government.⁴² Critics concede that the provision of empirical legitimacy despite their constrained political participation by validating even contested election results as has been consistent in Cameroon has led to policy inconsistency and the lowering of democratic standards.⁴³ World bodies such as the United Nations Organisation (UNO) and the World Bank as well as the EU have linked democracy and development as the solution to Africa’s myriad problems. The implication is that for countries to achieve development, they must democratize so as to ensure good governance and equity in the management of state resources. The EU has enshrined respect for democratic values and principles in its charter as the basis of relations with Third World countries. This, alongside the participation of civil society organizations in political dialogue and processes, is clearly articulated in its various agreements with the ACP countries as the basis for their partnership.⁴⁴ Seymour Martin Lipset is credited with having presented an original and empirical account of the relationship between socioeconomic development and political democracy⁴⁵: “the more well-to-do a nation, the greater the chances that it will sustain democracy.”⁴⁶ He broadly stated that “all the various aspects of economic development—industrialization, urbanisation, wealth and education—are so closely interrelated as to form one major factor which has the political correlate of democracy.”⁴⁷ These various dimensions, Julain Wucherpfinnig and Franziska Deutsch concede, are rather the conditions and not the causes of democracy. In other words, the survival of a democratic regime implies the provision of “sufficient legitimacy” to its citizens as requisites, and not prerequisites.⁴⁸

Democracy and human rights are important components as well as the bedrock of the EU’s “overall strategic approach in external relations” for the future due to changes in external environment, as well as internal commission reforms, requiring a reorientation of human rights and democracy strategies … in particular to ensure that these issues permeate all community policies, programmes and projects… The EU seeks to uphold the universality and individuality of human rights—civil, political, economic, social and cultural as reaffirmed by the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna.⁴⁹

While globalization has been a key determinant factor in countries of the less developed world, levels of socioeconomic development and democracy have been shown to be intertwined. It has been argued that although the elite class can play a significant role in the transition from authoritarianism to democracy, the nature of the state is also a significant factor in democratic transition processes.⁵⁰ The state can take the democratization process hostage as obtains in Cameroon and most other African countries, where despite rhetoric about transition, the pace has not only been slow, but riddled with corruption, vote buying, and the failure to put in place genuine democratic structures.

Ole Elgström and associates further maintain that countries with mixed legal systems (as is the case of Cameroon, where we have both the civil and common law jurisdictions) are more less positively equated with democracy than those with more homogenous legal systems. Although in countries such as Spain, Greece, Uruguay, and South Korea the elites took a front seat in the management of the transition process so as to restabilize their position as well as check the disruption, these authors, however, observe that real democracy has taken roots only where the management of the democratization process has not been limited only to the elite class but, rather, has been under the aegis of the broader civil society.⁵¹ This suggests that a weak civil society as obtains in Cameroon is antithetical to the democratization process.

In his comparative examination of the nature of EU democracy promotion policies since the mid-1990s, Richard Youngs points to the development of significantly new initiatives aimed at fostering a democratic culture analogous to US policies in Africa and most of the Third World. The EU’s focus has been on enhancing the social and ideational foundation of sustainable democratization. Although these projects failed short of favoring the use of punitive conditionality, significant attempts were made at linking the principles of democracy and good governance to both rural development work and transparency initiatives. Nevertheless, different components of EU policy need to work in more synergy “based on a more balanced and comprehensive conceptualization of the complex relationships between social, economic and political change.”⁵²

There has been an exponential increase in and more systematic use of political aid, as well as the funding of initiatives aimed at strengthening democratic procedures, which has eventuated into the basis of EU strategy. It is, however, difficult to assess and to come out with precise figures because of the diversity of categories and definitions of political aid by different states of the EU and the EC. For instance, some states lump together human rights, democracy, governance, and peace building under the category of political aid, thereby making comparison difficult. On the other hand, some states have placed similar types of initiatives in different categories. This rightly led Richard Youngs to conclude that “No EU donor separated out a distinct, US-style democracy assistance category of aid.”⁵³ The EU and individual European countries pumped substantial amounts of funding into initiatives meant to bring about democracy in the Third World.

There was an exponential growth in democracy-related aid between the early to the mid-1990s, peaking by 1997–98, estimated at 800 million euros per annum by the end of the 1990s. Germany topped the chart, doling out approximately 200 million euros per year by 1998 to “State and Civil Society work,” whereas the UK’s “Human Rights and Governance initiative” rose to over 100 million euros per year. The European Initiative for Human Rights and Democracy rose from 59 million euros between 1994 and 1998 million euros in 1999, and 2001 million euros for 2001, with total funding for 1996–1999 totaling 307 million euros.⁵⁴ Within the context of the Lomé Convention, sub-Saharan African countries even without substantial democratic transition received the lion’s share of funding for democracy assistance in absolute terms. This was, however, only a meager fraction of EC aid (0.3 percent), a total of 252 million euros for political aid projects between 1992 and 1997. During the 1996–1999 timeframe, the ACP countries received 21 percent, Latin America 17 percent, the Central and Eastern European states, the Balkans, and the CIS Transcaucasus—Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia⁵⁵—together 35 percent, with a meager 14 percent of the budget doled out to the southern Mediterranean partners of the North African and Middle East region. In a multiple case study of the Official Development Assistance (ODA) of Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and the EC/EU between 1980 and 1995, Sabine C. Zanger argues that governance, understood as respect for human rights, democratic structures, and low military expenditure played neither a consistent nor a prominent role in European aid. France and the UK privileged their former colonies in aid allocation, while the EC favored the ACP countries. Scholars have concluded that both strategic and economic factors underpin ODA distribution, while the needs of recipient countries receive only minimal attention.⁵⁶ The joint EU aid program is clearly influenced by national policies and therefore by donor interests, not recipients’ needs. These three countries provided 35 percent of the overall net ODA of all DAC countries between 1980 and 1995.⁵⁷ In other words, EU aid programs failed to resonate with the priorities of recipient countries.⁵⁸

The EU-funded democratization projects were characterized by a strong bottom-up approach. Until the mid-1990s, it was concentrated on election assistance, thereby attracting the criticism that the Commission “exhibited an unwarranted concern with the minimal, formal institutional elements of democracy.”⁵⁹ Thereafter, the projects shifted to human rights–based NGOs who undertook the conduct of seminars, advocacy, education, and training for human rights standards for administrators, law enforcement officers, and judges.⁶⁰ Similarly, a comparison of US and European approaches to democracy assistance shows five key areas of democratization assistance: (1) support for elections, (2) political parties, (3) judicial reform, (4) civil society, and (5) the media. Ironically, the support for elections as a catalyst for broader change processes has not yielded significant results.⁶¹ Most African governments, including Cameroon, quickly held multiparty elections as a mechanism to divert donor pressure but have failed to substantially democratize as evidenced by the failure to put in place genuine and neutral institutional structures including an independent election commission.

In Cameroon, the ruling class responded to the democratic tornado from Eastern Europe following the collapse of communism in the 1990s by grudgingly opening up the political space for political pluralism. To deflect the immense internal and external pressure from the international community and donors, they made piecemeal reforms and have since held regular elections beginning in 1992 (legislative and presidential elections) that have neither been free nor fair. The political playing field remains skewed in favor of the ruling CPDM regime of Paul Biya (in power since 1982). The electoral body (initially NEO and now ELECAM), like the newly created Constitutional Council, is manned mostly by apologists of the regime. While its role is limited to voter registration and the collation of results for the Constitutional Council that, although enshrined in the Constitution of January 18,1996, became reality only in January 2018 (delays in putting structures in place). Its authority is further eroded by the meddling of the administration (particularly the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Decentralization (MINATD). ELECAM was actually an imposition of the Commonwealth and Britain, who were keen on promoting their own electoral model and therefore financed the initiative until they became disenchanted with the pro-regime composition of the commission and withdrew their funding between 2010 and 2013.⁶² The organization received a mere 300,000 euros from the EU election program.⁶³ Voter apathy remains high, thereby questioning the formal legitimacy often conferred by donors on previous and future elections in the country.⁶⁴ Despite the unlevel political turf and lack of institutional guarantees, and despite criticism, donors have always rated the election results as credible and acceptable and have continued to push for more reforms to make the electoral process more credible. Why? One reason is that even when some donors, including Germany and the United States, deployed political conditionality, their efforts were undermined by Cameroon’s “patron donor,” France, who continued to fund the incumbent Yaounde regime.⁶⁵

While the West frames the push for good governance in the Third World as a “matter of self interested strategic calculation” based on realpolitik,⁶⁶ good governance is dependent on (1) the dependence and thriving of the wealth of the state on the economic pursuits of its private citizens—the economic activities of the citizens serves as a reliable source of wealth and power for the state; and (2) the prevalence of the rule of law for the thriving of private citizens’ economic activities, the objective exercise of state power, rather than its use to serve partisan interest⁶⁷: as obtains in Cameroon where political clientelism is the order of the day.⁶⁸ “Citizens must not only view themselves as being dependent on the impartial exercise of authority, but also belief that the economic order protected by that authority offers viable opportunities for sustaining a livelihood and/or accumulating wealth.”⁶⁹ In short, “state and society must first, depend on each other. Second, that relation of dependence must prove advantageous to both sides.”⁷⁰ According to Patrick Joseph Ganahl, “only a state of mutually advantageous dependence will produce strong incentives for good governance.”⁷¹

He argues that in the absence of the political-economic preconditions of good governance—including “a developed market economy and mutually advantageous dependence between state and society” in Africa, the dominant strategy consisting of the putting in place of institutions of accountability is out of place because it has led to an increase in the rejection of development aid and economic support for the continent. Emphasis, he maintains, should rather be on the development of a solid economic base. In other words, while it is counterproductive both to withhold development aid from corrupt regimes, it is also wrong to request political reforms instead of extensive support. If poor governance is the problem, “then even the best designed political institutions will be built on sand.”⁷² Similarly, an analysis of general opinions and views about the EU´s democratization program in Africa shows that various stakeholders have different perceptions of the project, leading to the need to question “‘whether the assistance framework is supporting and contributing to democracy building’”⁷³ as well as the increased willingness of “the EC to take these perceptions seriously.”⁷⁴ But without genuine institutions, we argue that democracy cannot take roots in Cameroon, and all aid toward achieving that aim is like throwing water on the back of a duck.

The contribution and role of the EU in the democratization process in Cameroon

This section examines the contribution as well as provides an appraisal of the EU’s development aid to the democratization process in Cameroon. It argues that the limited impact of the EU’s development aid to Cameroon’s democratization process is partly attributed to the lack of an institutional framework and the meddling of France in Cameroon’s political affairs because of its vested interest. We, however, begin with an outline of the legal framework underpinning the push for democracy by the EU and its member states.

The legal basis of the EU consists of two main treaties—the Treaty on European Union (TEU; Maastricht Treaty, effective since 1993) and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU; Treaty of Rome, effective since 1958). They jointly provide the legal framework for the EU’s commitment to democracy, as one of the core principles underlying the organization’s external action. Article 2 of the TEU states, “The EU’s founding values are ‘human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities.’”⁷⁵ Article 3, dealing with EU objectives, further states, “In its relations with the wider world, the EU contributes to the eradication of poverty and the protection of human rights, in particular the rights of the child, as well as to the strict observance and the development of international law, including respect for the principles of the United Nations Charter.”⁷⁶ Apart from Article 2 cited supra, Article 21 of TEU and Article 205 of the TFEU further emphasizes the EU’s promotion of democracy in the international system.⁷⁷ In line with Article 21 of the TEU, “The Union’s action on the international scene shall be guided by the principles which have inspired its own creation, development and enlargement, and which it seeks to advance in the wider world: democracy, the rule of law, the universality and indivisibility of human rights and fundamental freedoms, respect for human dignity, the principles of equality and solidarity, and respect for the principles of the United Nations Charter and international law.”⁷⁸

Since the Lomé Convention of 1975, the EU has gradually incorporated the vocabulary of democracy-building in Africa into its policy documents. This includes the adoption of a common stance on human rights, the principles of democracy, the rule of law, and good governance. The EU’s common position on these core values is concretized through the provision of development aid for democratization and electoral assistance.⁷⁹ Article 6 of the TEU clearly states that the principles of liberty, democracy, respect for human rights, and the rule of law are fundamental European values. Human rights field missions and election missions are accepted as part of the mandate of the EU, whose treaty considers the protection and promotion of human rights as well as support for democratization as corner stones of EU foreign policy and EU development cooperation (COM (00)191 on EU election assistance and observation).⁸⁰ In 2000, the EU adopted the EC Communication on Election Assistance and Observation.⁸¹ Article 2 of the TEU clearly states that the EU is founded on fundamental values shared by all EU countries that include the principles of liberty, democracy, respect for human rights, and the rule of law. Electoral Observation Missions (EOMs) are accepted as part of the EU’s mandate.⁸² The promotion of human rights has been a longstanding concern on the EU’s foreign policy agenda. For instance, “On April 5, 1977, the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission”⁸³ stressed the importance of protecting and respecting inalienable rights in the exercise of their powers and pursuance of the aims of the European communities.”⁸⁴ This Declaration was in line with EEC development cooperation within the framework of the Lomé Convention, where the consequences of Idi Amin’s authoritarian rule in Uganda, a beneficiary of European Economic Community (EEC) financial aid under the Convention, had caused an outcry in public opinion in Europe. This eventuated in the issuing of the “Uganda guidelines” in June 1977,⁸⁵ which effectively suspended EEC development cooperation to the Ugandan government. This example articulates an EEC foreign policy action anchored on what could be termed human rights strategy.⁸⁶

On July 21, 1986, the Foreign Ministers of the EC endorsed the Declaration on Human Rights and Foreign Policy proclaiming the protection of human rights worldwide as a legitimate and continuous duty.⁸⁷ This declaration recognizes the intersection between democracy and development and frowns at excessive military expenditure. Following on the heels of this declaration, in 1991 German Foreign Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development Carl-Dieter Spranger outlined five criteria for German development assistance: respect for human rights, popular participation in the democratic process, observation of the rule of law, a market-friendly approach to economic development, and the recipient government’s commitment to development and low military expenditure. Concurrently, UK Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd emphasized good governance and political pluralism as the basis of British development assistance. Then–UK Chancellor of the Exchequer John Major argued that aid should be contingent on social and political reforms toward multiparty democracy and “on the reduction of military spending, in order to maintain Britain’s security and economic interests.”⁸⁸ This ethos and policy stance is also reflected in the EC’s Declaration on Human Rights and Foreign Policy.⁸⁹ The point that foreign aid should maintain the donor’s security resonates with neo-realist thinking, especially when used to foster democratic values, including respect for human rights while keeping military expenditure at the minimum: “The less a government spends on its defense, the more resources it has available for addressing its poverty. By demanding low military expenditure, the donor attempts to increase the national budget of the developing country that can be used for poverty reduction.”⁹⁰

The EU and the strengthening of democracy in Cameroon

A recent assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of EU–Cameroon cooperation with the aim of determining whether they are efficient and identifying the obstacles to see if the EU could do better shows that between 2007 and 2012, the EU gave development aid to Cameroon to an estimated tune of 200 billion CFA. It came fourth in the ranking of Cameroon’s traditional development partners after France, Germany, and the World Bank.⁹¹ Within the context of the 11th EDF, the EU and Cameroon signed a new National Indicative Programme (NIP) for a total of 185 billion FCFA, for the 2014–2020 period. The aim is for both parties to formulate new governance and rural development programs.⁹² Some positive areas of this cooperation include the judicial system in which the EU has provided judicial assistance to people awaiting trial, the reformation of the government’s budgetary program, the capacity building of the Board of Auditors, and the amelioration of the participation of civil society organizations on political dialogue.⁹³ These moves are all geared toward institutional building to ensure democratization and good governance in the management of public affairs in Cameroon.

The EU also seeks to empower civil society organizations (CSOs) because a vibrant civil society is an essential component of any democratic system and process. Although states are charged with guaranteeing development and democratic governance, the synergy between CSOs can help in the fight against poverty and lead to a decrease in inequality and exclusion. In other words, CSOs ensure a level playing field.⁹⁴ The participation of CSOs in political processes and dialogue is essential to ensure the elaboration of effective and inclusive development policies. To achieve this aim, the EU focuses on (1) the promotion of an appropriate environment (most notably, a legal framework for CSO in partner countries, (2) encouraging the constructive participation of CSOs in the internal politics of partner countries, and (3) building the capacity of CSOs so that they can better exercise their role as independent actors.⁹⁵

Between 2007 and 2013, the Delegation of the EU was the main provider of technical and financial support to CSOs in Cameroon. It provided an estimated 30 million euros to support initiatives by civil society actors. Additionally, several programs have been put in place. One key example is the Programme for the Support of Civil Society that was created under the framework of the 10th EDF with the aim of better engaging CSO in public policies. It consists of three main components: (1) the amelioration of collaboration between CSO and public authorities, (2) support for governance initiatives by CSOs, and (3) the provisioning of training opportunities to CSOs.⁹⁶

The Cotonou Agreement and the Paris Declaration emphasized the role of civil society actors in the elaboration, implementation, and follow-up of development policies. Within the context of the 9th EDF, a certain number of programs aimed at reinforcing the capacity of civil society were put in place in the ACP countries. In this regard, the Support Programme for the Restructuring of Cameroon’s Civil Society (PASOC au Cameroun) (2012–2015) financed to the tune of 7 million euros⁹⁷ had as its objective the emergence of a more organized and vibrant civil society, capable of exercising its role in the public domain so as to democratically call the attention of decision makers and contribute to public decision-making by serving as a watchdog with the overall aim of ensuring the sustainable development of Cameroon. They were to influence public policies. The project emphasized “learning by doing”—that is, civil society actors were given the leverage by the EU to set up projects through ten organizations (one per region of Cameroon), to train trainers and people to assist in carrying out advocacy. EU funding to these civil society actors was geared toward either financing their advocacy activities—that is, for them to influence public decision-makers or for collective activities that support their work of mobilization toward particular activities or a common vision or their visibility in the public space (through the media, websites, etc.).⁹⁸

Between 2007 and 2011, the EU provided 5.6 million euros (100% of the total funding) to this program. The objectives of the project were (1) to reinforce the capacity of CSOs; (2) to lay emphasis on access to rights in the public domain; and (3) to promote alternative expertise for CSOs. The outcome has been (1) the emergence of several civil society coalitions on health, social housing, follow-up of public policies, deforestation, and migration, among others, (2) introduction of the culture of advocacy within CSOs, (3) gender mainstreaming in consultations between the state and civil society.⁹⁹

In its own evaluation of the PASOC program, the EU points out that the program led to the organization of 90 training workshops on capacity building and associational life that brought together well over 1,200 organizations, 30 training workshops on advocacy that witnessed the participation of 450 organizations. Additionally, some 30 public meetings were also organized, excluding training sessions on relations with the press, and regular information is being provided to CSOs. Furthermore, an estimated 150 subventions were also distributed all over Cameroon, and a wealth of information for all actors is readily available on the Internet.¹⁰⁰ Other positive results of the PASOC program includes several laws and their decree of applications that are in progress on the status of the handicapped, stabilization of the cost price for the establishment of civil status documents in the Extreme North region of Cameroon, and a law on the protection of fauna. Furthermore, the participation of civil society actors in all public investment processes has already been achieved. A civil society platform on economic and social rights as well as on social housing is also emerging, among others.¹⁰¹

Another EU program targeting the democratization process in Cameroon was the Electoral Process Support Fund. The EU’s electoral support is governed by the TEU as well as related provisions on development cooperation. The EU believes that election is the bedrock of representative democracy and that electoral support fosters democratization.¹⁰² Despite misgivings, the EU decided to approve Cameroon’s electoral support project with a financial assistance of around 2–3 million euros.¹⁰³ The EU’s initial doubt in supporting the project from the onset was caused by the questionable selection of members of ELECAM, Cameroon’s electoral commission. Despite insistence from the opposition and civil society actors that people of unquestionable objectivity be appointed to man the body,¹⁰⁴ President Biya largely appointed mostly his party’s faithful, thereby putting the impartiality of the commission in question. The delegation, however, pointed out that ELECAM had made some progress by nominating neutral regional directors, as well as in the procurement of supplies.¹⁰⁵ But without an institutional framework that regulates elections in Cameroon, all elections including the last presidential and senatorial elections have been replete with shortcomings and have fallen beyond international standards. This resonates with the view according to which providing aid to countries where there is no institutional framework for democratization is similar to throwing money out the window.¹⁰⁶ Further, overemphasis on elections as capable of orchestrating broader changes demonstrates the EU’s overwhelming “concern with minimal, formal institutional elements of democracy,”¹⁰⁷ whereas elections have remained a ruse to divert donor pressure and perpetuate authoritarian rule. This is the case even when support for elections has failed to yield any meaningful result.¹⁰⁸ This may explain why the EU neither provided financial support nor sent an observation mission during the presidential elections of October 7, 2018.

Shortcomings of the EU democracy assistance project in Cameroon

In line with the EU’s Electoral Assistance Framework, the EU has constantly sent election observers (EOMs) to Cameroon during every election but for the 2018 presidential elections. Although this has contributed to conflict mitigation and constantly provided deterrence against electoral fraud,¹⁰⁹ critics maintain that this is insufficient because observation usually begins only close to the countdown to the election proper. They further buttress their argument with the fact that, most often, elections are rigged in advance through the lack of an impartial elections management body, the phenomenon of selective registration of voters (in which opposition militants are disenfranchised), and the outright buying of consciences by members of the ruling party (CPDM) in the country. Despite these deeply entrenched shortcomings, various EU observation missions have always pointed to “improvements,” arguing on each occasion that the shortcomings of the electoral process were unlikely to “significantly affect the outcome of the elections.”¹¹⁰ A much welcomed, evolving paradigm shift is in place showing the EU’s recognition that “elections are a process rather than an event.” This transition “from event-driven support to process-and demand-driven support”¹¹¹ is instantiated in Cameroon by the myriad governance-oriented programs. These includes programs seeking to improve the judiciary, forestry governance, civil society support partly to strengthen CSOs as well as to fight voter apathy, the strengthening of the private sector, and efforts to improve the business climate that are being undertaken by the EU. Furthermore, the EU is increasingly involved in the electoral cycle approach: recognition that elections involve a multifaceted process including a wide range of legal, technical, and organizational aspects¹¹² that needs to be taken into consideration concurrently and actors whose capacities need to be boasted. As argued above, most EU interventions regarding elections in Cameroon have been largely on an ad hoc basis, calling for the need to promote longer-term sustainability through increased capacity building at both the regional and grassroots level. Without this, democratization and good governance will remain a top-down approach.

While the EU has been very instrumental in providing democracy and good governance assistance to African countries including Cameroon, the democratic transition process in Cameroon has been moribund due largely to internal obstacles, particularly the lack of political will to put in place a credible institutional framework as well as to implement electoral and good governance reforms. Institutions are only “being progressively” put in place, and many remain on paper, such as Article 66 of Cameroon’s 1996 Constitution on the declaration of assets, before taking up as well as when leaving public office by all public authorities including the president of the Republic.

Although the international community has a role to play in fostering a democratic culture through the consolidation of democracy (“especially in terms of leverage and linkages”), such assistance will be unsuccessful without a domestic constituency that is committed to democratic deepening. It has been pointed out that (1) “democracy promotion policies of the EU may fulfil more covert agendas,”¹¹³ (2) “democracy building has become rhetoric to pursue economic interests, and policies are no longer driven by universal values and a benign trade-off between complementary interests but rather by more narrow national security, energy or economic interests,¹¹⁴ (3) “inconsistencies in policy implementation” (especially when the actions of individual EU member states are at variance with the policies of the EC) articulate the lack of prioritization of “normative principles and values,” including democracy and human rights, over EU external interests in a transparent and just manner¹¹⁵ and (4) democracy promotion is shrouded in ambiguity—particularly the nature of the interventions.¹¹⁶

A further obstacle impeding the EU electoral assistance project lies in the fact that despite the complementarity between electoral assistance and observation activities, they are funded through different budgetary mechanisms. While observation missions are funded through the centrally managed European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR), most often, geographical funds take care of electoral assistance. A further and related obstacle has to do with the process for funding decisions where national authorities are significantly involved in the ranking of priorities as well as in the implementation of electoral assistance.¹¹⁷ In Cameroon, the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Decentralization has been a constant partner and has always worked in synergy with the EU in terms of electoral assistance. Critics maintain that most often, pro-government CSOs are selected for the implementation of various projects.¹¹⁸ Like other African countries, Cameroon is, of course, widely noted for clientelism and political patronage,¹¹⁹ and most NGOs are actually vehicles for the self-aggrandizement of elites since one often has to have the right networks to get projects or funding for projects.¹²⁰

The limited success of the EU democratization assistance to Cameroon is partly due to its insufficient adaptation to the local socioeconomic and political context, particularly “to the challenging context of democratization processes which are either stuck, or at risk of meltdown.” It is based on a Eurocentric, one-size-fits-all paradigm, with an overemphasis on elections “rather than on wider structural and institutional changes, and seeks results too quickly.”¹²¹ The focus of international actors including the EU has been on elections, “actual transition from authoritarian rule,”¹²² with little attention to what will take place thereafter. This narrow focus has actually limited the impact of the EU’s electoral assistance program since elections are conceptualized as a single process. The international community held the misplaced view that elections will be a great catalyst and will orchestrate other democratic processes. Most countries, including Cameroon, might be considered a “hybrid,” or what David Mokam rightly calls “a Cameroonian exception” in governance when compared to Benin and Niger (where political dialogue eventually led to change) with the hidden agenda of perpetuating “the domination of the state party in the political landscape of the country.”¹²³ Cameroonian authorities quickly held multiparty elections in order to get out of the Western radar but have not necessarily democratized—its institutions have remained fragile.¹²⁴ Through his research on democracy building in Africa, Henry Kippin has taken issue with Gordon Crawford. Pointing to Crawford’s work, Kippin questions the type of democracy that the EU is promoting. There is overwhelming consensus that “the EU is seeking to impose good governance as a form of conditionality, through soft compulsion in the form of democracy building packages. Thus, good practices would be rewarded with increased financial support through the democracy building assistance. Although good governance is a desirable end, rewarding good practice does not consequently result in democracy building, and may in fact encourage and institutionalize undemocratic regimes.”¹²⁵

Additionally, the project suffers from lack of harmonization as well as “alignment among a rather fragmented field of actors and more rigorous and comprehensive assessments of ‘what works.’ These actors need to systematically share experiences and lessons so as to improve on current practice.”¹²⁶ Both the EU and individual member countries have not harmonized their aid packages and expertise so that they can learn from each other.

Various commentators have argued that political aid conditionality through the exportation of democracy is likely to enhance national security and international peace.¹²⁷ Stated otherwise, war is less likely to break out in dyads of two democratic countries than in other dyads.¹²⁸ The promotion of democracy beyond the frontiers of democratic countries becomes a mechanism for securing and maintaining peaceful relationships in their own interest so as to lessen the potential threat from insecure and rogue states in the developing world. This argument gained resonance and traction after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US. Additionally, foreign aid is a vehicle for the penetration and simultaneous spreading of Western ideas and values such as democracy and human rights—including gay and lesbian rights, which is a bone of contention between Western and less developed countries today. For instance, homosexuality remains illegal in 38 African countries, including Cameroon.¹²⁹ As David H. Lumsdaine maintains, “domestic values influence the values that states adopt in international politics.”¹³⁰ This suggests that idealist values underpin the tying of aid to human rights records and democratic institutions. He further concedes, “states base their international policies on their perception of international society and how it defines respectable and appropriate conduct, and international practices once adopted influence ideas of acceptably just conduct and thus lead to progressive refinement of practices in accord with their moral meaning.”¹³¹ Foreign aid rightly becomes a triple transfer. It is both a transfer of money and resources, but also of cultural values.¹³² This is most epitomized by threats to cut aid from Uganda by the US and Western countries following the voting into law of the country’s harsh anti-homosexuality act in February 2014. Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act imposes life sentences for “Homosexuality acts”: “having sexual knowledge of a person against the order of nature.”¹³³

Furthermore, the promotion of democracy and human rights is used as an incentive to foster economic development and to avoid overdependence on Western donors. This has the long-term reward of increasing the prospect of trade between the donor and the recipient country. Development aid is certainly not an act of benevolence and charity but, rather, an act of self-interest. As noted by Peter Burnell, “Good governance is believed to be a significant determinant of the development returns to ODA. On these grounds political conditionalities are being attached to ODA.”¹³⁴

One further reason for the failure or limited success of EU aid is the impact of national interest on this aid as well as the level of coordination.¹³⁵ Commentators have consistently argued that in advocating for a common European aid program, France was keen to share the cost of its former colonies¹³⁶ with other members of the Union—in other words, to strengthen France-Afrique and therefore to serve its personal interests. While aid to developing countries is the shared competence of the EU and member states, it is not “free of the commercial and political considerations that often characterize national aid policies.”¹³⁷ Neo-realists concede that donors also compete over international influence and leverage and use foreign aid to achieve this lofty aim. Individual member states also have particular relationships with the EC and therefore prioritize different things. For example, Stephen Dearden maintains that “the degree of poverty focus” for the EC aid programs, emphasized by the UK and the Nordic states, has been compromised by historic associations (e.g., Spain’s links with Latin America) or security considerations (e.g., the Southern member states’ concern with migration from North Africa) in determining aid priorities.”¹³⁸ An analysis of ODA averages between 1972 and 1974 of 17 donor countries led to the conclusion that foreign aid is used as an instrument of international political influence. Aid allocation by different donors to the same countries could also be underpinned by international expectations and moral standards¹³⁹ as well as Sabine C. Zanger’s concept of “aid worthy countries.”¹⁴⁰ The theory of donor interests characterizes aid as an instrument of international exploitation. It classifies the donor as a villain, who uses foreign aid as to tool to seek selfish advantages. The theory of recipient need classifies aid as an instrument of the recipient domestic policy. Aid is oriented at the needs of the recipient country. The donor resembles a distributor of charity, based on a continuing moral obligation of the rich to help the poor countries.¹⁴¹

While donors have both strategic and economic interests, recipient countries have only basic economic needs. Donors sometimes use aid to reward those who support their positions in the international arena: “friends are treated favourably in comparison to needy countries that do not classify as ‘friend’ of the donor.”¹⁴² “Political relationships,” John White maintains, “shape the way in which resources are provided.”¹⁴³ This seems to explain the preferential treatment given by France and Britain to their ex-colonies in terms of aid allocation¹⁴⁴ as well as the EU’s special relationships (multilateral ODA) with so-called associated countries—members of the Lomé treaties—today called the African, Caribbean, and Pacific countries.

The EU’s dismal success in aid implementation has been attributed to the complex aid architecture within the organization. Until the 2000s, donor complementarity and division of labor was not at the forefront of the EU’s foreign aid in sub-Saharan Africa. National aid bureaucracies in the region seriously compromised its ability to promote aid effectiveness. The co-existence of its members’ development policies, alongside ‘“the programme managed by the European Commission made the EU much less than the sum of its constituent parts.”¹⁴⁵ The lack of coordination and competing objectives led to duplication and to the marginal significance of the EU’s development aid as well as to the greater degree of aid fragmentation in sub-Saharan Africa. In other words, the national interests of its members are taking precedence over the common goals of the union, leading to the progressive loss of its actorness. This calls for the alignment of the development objectives and preferences of its members so that the EU can act autonomously and cohesively on the basis of common interests and norms and in the implementation of its policies. One commentator maintains that until 1985, the EU’s development policy objectives were not only inexplicit, but were also concurrently bureaucratized as a result of the EU’s expanding policy agenda. This led to both poor internal and external coordination with other donors such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), duplication of programs, competing objectives, and the overburdening of ACP administrators. Additionally, donors failed to share their technical knowhow, conduct joint evaluations, or exploit the “comparative advantage” of their peers. Furthermore, the EU’s complex aid program as well as the weakness of the Commission’s own management structure posed problems. The end result was lack of transparency and accountability. “Overall the EC was an organisation with a focus upon administrative procedures and disbursement rather than results, with little effective monitoring or evaluation of EC aid.”¹⁴⁶ The vested interests of member states tend to impede or slow down the implementation of decisions, which eventuates into failure in the medium to long term. This leads to policy evaporation, “which means that decisions made by headquarters fail to materialise on the ground, …a significant problem in the EU’s relations with the developing world. This has undermined the EU’s credibility not only with developing countries, but also with other international actors.” It has further led to a restructuring of power—in that donors tend to privilege as their interlocutors ministries of economy over sectoral ministeries.¹⁴⁷

Furthermore, the EU has also been unable to translate internal effectiveness (cohesiveness)—into external effectiveness—its ability to achieve desired goals, that is, its ability to exploit opportunities available to it. This is translated on the ground in terms of lack of local ownership of projects and therefore their unsustainability, at a time when ownership has become the signature tune for all development donors. The result has been aid fragmentation and duplication. The former is believed to retard economic growth, become an incentive for corruption, and contribute to the erosion of democratic quality in recipient countries.¹⁴⁸ Aid coordination has instead led to the concentration of certain donors’ activities in certain countries—“aid darlings,” while others have become “aid orphans.”¹⁴⁹ Several reasons account for lack of aid coordination—including the national interests of some donors—yet some donors may value their presence in key countries more than aid effectiveness. This may be because they seek to promote their political and commercial interests, bandwagon and operate where other “rival” donors are active, or consider visibility necessary to legitimize and secure more aid domestically.¹⁵⁰ Additionally, there is also resistance to donor coordination from recipient countries. They may fear deep cuts in the volume of aid destined for them or the “imposition of more restrictive” conditionalities that may further reduce their policy space.”¹⁵¹ Intragovernmental problems within African states may also lead to a restructuring of power since donors often prefer to deal with ministries of the economy rather than other sectoral ministries. Moreover, donor aid bureaucracies constitute part and parcel of the problem: they believe in monetary disbursement, not the output achieved, and prefer aid fragmentation because everyone takes responsibility for failure¹⁵²; after all, benefits would accrue only to developing countries and not to them. This explains the low incentive structure for fostering donor coordination in aid agencies.

As a federal organization, the EU is perceived as a “sleeping giant,” implying that its actorness is only realizable through relations with the developing world, which makes development policy sacrosanct to both European integration and to the EU’s role in the international scene. As one commentator states: “Without external policies such as relations with the developing world, the “idea of Europe diminished.”¹⁵³ Among member states, there is the lack of convergence of preferences on aid coordination. Likeminded donors (the Nordics, the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg) give more and better aid and pay more attention to poverty eradication, while countries including Belgium, France, Portugal, Spain, and/or their neighbors—Italy, Greece, and the new entrants in central Europe—have largely focused on former colonies but give qualitatively and quantitively lesser aid.¹⁵⁴ There has been a lack of consensus on aid coordination among EU member states, with the likeminded donors showing skepticism for fear of forfeiting their sovereignties or seeing it usurped by the EU.

Furthermore, aid programs that are managed by the EU as a supranational authority are perceived as “a proxy for EU actorness in development policy.”¹⁵⁵ The constant admission of new members entails accommodating their preferences and the need for reforms of the EU, which has made the Union’s policy more poverty-oriented and more efficient. This led to a rather warm and enthusiastic reception of initiatives that promote coordination and complementarity. The EU’s federal development policy has led the organization to reflect a value-based identity, which transcends post-colonialism dynamics, emphasizes poverty eradication, promotes an incentive-based approach to democratic governance, and upholds the virtues of regional integration and the security-development nexus.¹⁵⁶ However, the adoption of a supranational development policy has been questioned by scholars who feel that the EU has simply become a World Bank and WTO paradigmatic development puppet that is based on aid conditionality and trade liberalization.¹⁵⁷

The third point has to do with the EU’s supranational role. It has gradually shifted from functional integration and the vision that it could achieve more as a single entity. “The adoption of the European Consensus on Development in December 2005 marked a change of direction not only because for the first time the EU’s Member States and the EU’s institutions committed to a common vision in international development, but also because it crystallized the EU’s aspirations to a value-based identity.”¹⁵⁸ Poverty eradication was also brought back to the forefront of EU development policy, the promotion of common values and principles—democracy, the rule of law and human rights, equality, participation of civil society actors, political dialogue, ownership, effective multilateralism.

The need to enhance development effectiveness through better aid as well as enhanced policy coherence was also re-echoed. This, however, excluded the full delegation of policy to the EU,¹⁵⁹ although it gave the organization more leverage. When the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were adopted, and subsequently at the Financing for Development (FfD) conference the EU pledged to increase their volume of aid—to reach 0.56 percent of gross national income (GNI) by 2010 and 0.7 by 2015—this pledge forced other development donors such as the United States to follow suit. The EU, however, has been unable to deliver on this pledge due to the 2008 global recession. With this new development, the need for aid coordination took center stage, and the EU maintained a common position at the Forum for Aid Effectiveness held in Paris in November 2004, which culminated in the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness emphasizing a bottom-up development approach and the coordination and predictability of donor actions. This was a milestone in the history of foreign aid. The EU followed up this new policy initiative in May 2007 by adopting the Code of Conduct on Complementarity and Division of Labour. This code advocates for the concentration of aid in fewer countries (“cross-country complementarity”), a reduction in the number of priority sectors (“in-country complementarity”), and focus on those areas in which member states enjoy a comparative advantage (“‘cross-sector complementarity”). This partly implied collective decision-making among EU members so as to fix the disequilibrium between “aid darlings” and “aid orphans” and to simultaneously streamline the number of sectors in which they were active. It also fostered the principle of inclusiveness by bringing donors in a recipient country together as well as ensuring the local ownership¹⁶⁰ of the process so as to ensure long-term sustainability.

Perhaps what has thwarted the EU’s aid effectiveness policy is the lack of consultation of other stakeholders. Civil society actors and field NGOs in developing countries were never consulted for their own input into the process. As one civil society activists noted:

Decisions and priorities are decided upon in Brussels with no input from us who are working in the field. How can aid be effective when the local needs of recipients are never taken into consideration? I think the EU’s complex aid architecture has frustrated its good intentions. Countries of the EU are still competing among themselves in giving aid.¹⁶¹

Aid orphans have remained aid orphans. Maurizio Carbone has identified a dual set of obstacles that stood in the way of the EU’s ambitious aid effectiveness program. First, member states remained self-seeking actors in their own right. In other words, the EU’s actorness is at odds with the divergent preferences of member states. The EU failed to behave and was never perceived as being an autonomous entity by recipient countries.¹⁶² The EC has largely continued to act as one among several donors, showing lack of complementarity between the EC and member states’ bilateral aid. The national mode of interaction has been at variance and has actually prevailed over the federal mode of interaction. Because of this scenario, it has been difficult to identify “lead donors.” Furthermore, the likeminded Nordic countries have indicated their desire to collaborate with “like-minded countries”—some of whom are outside the EU’s frontiers. They substantiate their point on grounds of lack of the same development norms and practices. This has materialized into the risk of a “Europe of two speeds” or even more speeds, in which “the propensity to act individually or in like-minded groups (would) prevail.”¹⁶³

Furthermore, aid effectiveness is beleaguered by “coordination fatigue” due to bureaucracy. As Stephen Dearden maintains, there is a long-time lapse between commitment and the disbursement of development funds. By 1999, this averaged 4.5 years, and 20 billion euros remained outstanding in 2008. National aid bureaucracies in recipient countries foresaw that their time will be seriously taxed as they will have to spend more time attending meetings. Donor coordination was seen as being in the EU’s interest and antithetical to the spirit of the principle of ownership. Specifically, “the element underpinning both explanations is that national aid bureaucrats do not have adequate incentives to promote coordination and division of labor. In fact, greater EU actorness could imply a loss of advantageous positions acquired over the years for some, and increased (instead of the existing diffused) responsibility for failure for others.”¹⁶⁴

The second set of problems is embedded in the aid architecture. The EU is entangled in wider coordination mechanisms—particularly with other international actors, meaning that it has to be sensitive to the development policies of more established actors such as the US, which has remained rather lukewarm, and the emerging donors including China, Brazil, Russia, and India. Concurrently, the EU is in competition with the World Bank, which has traditionally tried to promote sectoral level aid coordination in the economic sphere, and the United Nations, which has been more preoccupied with the social sector.¹⁶⁵

These actors do not only have more staffers and more followers and exclusive relations with partner countries, but they are the darlings of the Nordic countries, which have traditionally shown enthusiasm for this type of aid coordination. In addition to this, there is a chasm between the EU’s actorness, perceived to be favorably received by recipient countries, which is not the case. This misplaced belief at the headquarters level instead tends to reduce the space for negotiation of developing countries and is at odds with their ownership of projects. Overall, this has produced mixed results: for aid orphans Burundi, Central African Republic, and Malawi, the EU’s actorness was unnecessary because of the minimal presence of European donors and therefore the unlikelihood of the duplication of activities among them. For aid darling countries, there were several outcomes: where recipient governments undertook the aid coordination process or where wider coordination fared well—for example, Kenya, Mozambique, Rwanda, Zambia—greater EU “actorness was considered redundant” and undesirable. In situations of weak coordination mechanisms, e.g., Mali, greater EU actorness became “a potential engine for involving recalcitrant international donors (e.g. Cameroon, Senegal); in other cases (e.g. Ethiopia), EU actorness was limited because it was argued that, in the interest of the recipient country, it would be better to (re)activate broader coordination platforms.”¹⁶⁶

Conclusion

The EU’s infusion of democracy and good governance as core principles of its foreign policy and therefore for its own economic and political self-interest—including the promotion of its values (realpolitik¹⁶⁷)—led to the reassertion of its actorness in the less developed world, including Cameroon. This is in line with the theory of donor interest that characterizes aid as an instrument of exploitation.¹⁶⁸ A conjuncture between lack of political will and therefore lack of local ownership (the main internal obstacle) and factors embedded in the structure of the EU’s aid architecture, particularly the vested interests of its member states, has limited its democracy-building initiatives. Although the organization and its member states’ vested interests tend to undermine this process, it must be understood from the prism of the post–Cold War context and within the macro context of the globalization of trade. They are facing challenges and threats to their economic and political interests in the scramble for natural resources from actors including the Chinese—the darling of autocratic governments in Africa. The conjuncture between trade globalization and the need for stability, security, and the economic interests of its member states (especially France) has tended to override the promotion of democracy and the respect for human rights in the post-9/11 context in which the fight against terrorism has taken center stage.

Besides its member states’ interest, the EU’s blind faith in elections (the minimalist condition) as capable of orchestrating broader changes is misplaced and has been doomed to failure—putting to question the genuineness of the organization’s push and support through democracy-building assistance. This failure calls for a reevaluation and reformation of the EU’s democracy assistance framework. Although the protection of human rights and democratic principles are sacrosanct to the core identity of the EU at both the internal and external levels, the organization suffers from a delivery gap. In other words, there is a disjuncture “between the rhetoric proclamations in Brussels and the impact on the ground of its policies and programmes.”¹⁶⁹ One reason for this gap is “coordination fatigue,” which is attributed to bureaucracy—the huge time lapse between commitment and the disbursement of funds with implications for aid coordination among donors as well as the failure to consult other aid donors.¹⁷⁰ In addition, as a member state of the EU, France’s vested interests evidenced by the continuous provision of aid to the Yaounde regime, thereby shielding it from democratization and good governance,¹⁷¹ tends to impede or slow down the implementation of punitive conditionalities and decisions. This eventuates into failure in the medium to long term and leads to EU policy evaporation.¹⁷² Furthermore, attempts to measure the real impact of the various democracy and good governance programs are dogged by methodological constraints, including the indeterminate nature of the concept of democracy, the problem of attribution, the multifaceted and multilevel character of processes of democratization, as well as what is dubbed counterfactual.¹⁷³ This means that what would have transpired without the EU’s support through the PASOC project and the Electoral Process Support Fund to Cameroon’s democracy-building project remains unknown.

Apart from France’s meddling in Cameroon’s internal politics, the EU’s democracy-building assistance program has been besieged by the lack of a credible institutional framework for the deepening of democracy as a process. Emboldened by French backing, the country’s ruling class is rather interested in maintaining the status quo (“ruling democracy”¹⁷⁴) in which they and their French masters gain at the detriment of the majority of Cameroonians who have lost interest in the power of elections to usher in positive change and a peaceful transition. Voter apathy has heightened. During the 2011 presidential elections 4,657,48  registered while 3,830,272(representing 82%) turned out on polling day. Contrary to this, and despite an increase in the number of registered voters to 6,667,754, only 4,951,434 (representing 68.3 percent) turned out at the polls during the October 7, 2018 polls.¹⁷⁵ The ruling elites have paid only lip service to genuine democratic transition in the country. They use the skewed institutional framework, especially the newly created Constitutional Council and the elections management body ELECAM, to maintain the ruling CPDM state-party and crime syndicate with Biya at the helm in power since 1982. The opposition has continuously challenged vote tally during every election in the country. The ruling elite’s political maneuver and failure to genuinely embrace democratization and good governance suggests that while national political actors grudgingly accept externally imposed reforms from Western governments and multilateral development partners, they are also able to shape the field in function of their “negotiating capital.”¹⁷⁶ In Cameroon’s case, it is partly its natural resource wealth and strategic location in the Central African region where, as a member of the regional multinational joint task force, it and other African countries—Benin, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria—are partnering with the West in fighting against the Boko Haram insurgency in the Lake Chad region.

The PASOC focused on the building of institutions for the management of public affairs, especially the empowerment of CSOs to serve as watchdogs and to ensure effective grassroots participation in the democratic process in Cameroon by all stakeholders. Both the PASOC and the Electoral Support Fund are geared toward fostering democratization, and good governance reforms are financed under separate and different financial mechanisms. Although the election assistance project and election observation missions are complementary, they are undertaken as independent activities. The former is implemented through geographic funds, whereas the latter receives funding from the centrally managed European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR).¹⁷⁷ This suggests the lack of effective coordination (fragmentation in the aid architecture) that could enhance the organization’s electoral cycle approach and lead to better aid coordination and to the deepening of democracy and human rights. Cameroon’s civil society has been unable to engineer political dialogue that could eventuate into real institutional reforms and guarantee a level playing field. For instance, the electoral code remains skewed and in favor of the ruling party. Cases of electoral malpractices, including the brutalization and chasing away of opposition representatives and falsification of ballot tallies at polling stations by agents of the regime that were brought to the Constitutional Council by opposition candidates following the 2018 presidential elections (18 election petitions), were simply rejected (irrecevable) on the fallacious grounds of lack of “evidence.” This was (and has always been) the case even when there was clearly a mismatch between result sheets from the polling stations and the ones on which the body was supposed to base its decisions in proclaiming the results. The Council, whose members are mostly from the ruling party, are not impartial. A 2013 socio-legal review of Cameroon’s major electoral laws and political structures and their impact on the country’s democratic performance in terms of citizen participation, electoral institutions, and the resolution of electoral disputes concluded that “the laws are incapable of leading to a culture of respect for the rights of the Cameroonian people to freely elect their leaders.”¹⁷⁸ This skewed electoral framework has led to accusations of an electoral holdup and resonates with the view linking the giving of aid to countries with broken institutions as a disincentive for them to fix their institutions and genuinely embrace democratization and good governance reforms.¹⁷⁹ Furthermore, most political education projects including the PASOC remain urban-based, whereas most of the potential electorates are based in rural areas.

The Electoral Support Fund therefore fell short of expectations because of partisan political appointments into the elections management body, ELECAM. This suggests that wider structural and institutional changes are required for democracy to take roots in Cameroon. Both projects have instead led to the legitimization of illegitimate electoral processes by the EU. Besides institutional building for the promotion of good governance, there is the need for the EU’s support of democratization through electoral support and observation missions to cover all stages of the electoral process/cycle (“electoral cycle approach”) to make its projects more effective.¹⁸⁰

Notes

1. Amanda K. McVety, Enlightened Aid: US Development as Foreign Policy in Ethiopia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).

2. McVety, “Enlightened Aid,” in Aid and Authoritarianism in Africa, ed. Tobias Hagmann and Filip Reyntjens (London: Zed Books, 2016); Marie-Emmanuelle Pommerolle, “Donors and the Making of ‘Credible’ Elections in Cameroon,” in Aid and Authoritarianism in Africa, ed. Tobias Hagmann and Filip Reyntjens (London: Zed Books, 2016), 119–38.

3. Hagmann and Reyntjens, “Aid and Authoritarianism in Africa,” 2.

4. Piet Konings, The Politics of Neoliberal Reforms in Africa: State and Civil Society in Cameroon (Bamenda: Langaa Publishers, 2011).

5. Nikolas G. Emmanuel, ‘“With a Friend Like This…”: Shielding Cameroon from Democratization,” Journal of Asian and African Studies 48, no. 2 (2012): 13.

6. R. D. McKinlay and R. Little, “A Foreign Policy Model of the Distribution of British Bilateral Aid, 1960–70,” British Journal of Political Science 8, no. 3 (1978a): 313, R. D McKinlay and R. Little, “The French Aid Relationship: A Foreign Policy Model of the Distribution of French Bilateral Aid, 1964–70,” Development and Change 9, no. 3 (1978b): 459.

7. Hans Morgenthau, “A Political Theory of Foreign Aid,” American Political Science Review 56, no. 2 (1962): 309.

8. R. D. McKinlay, “The Aid Relationship: A Foreign Policy Model and Interpretation of the Distributions of Official Bilateral Economic Aid of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, 1960–1970,” Comparative Political Studies 11, no. 4 (1979): 413.

9. Wil Hout, “Governance beyond the European Consensus on Development: What Drives EU Aid Selectivity?” Paper presented at the ECPR Joint Sessions, Workshop “Political Conditionalities and Foreign Aid” (University of Mainz, 11–16 March 2013), 11.

10. Isa Felipe Gómez et al., “Challenges to the Effectiveness of EU Human Rights and Democratisation Policies,” Work Package No. 12, Deliverable No. 3 (2016): iii. https://bim.lbg.ac.at/sites/files/bim/attachments/deliverable-12.3.pdf (accessed November 6, 2018).

11. Paul Clist, “25 Years of Aid Allocation Practice: Whither Selectivity?,” World Development 39, no. 10 (2011): 1726–28; Hout, “Governance beyond the European Consensus on Development.”

11. Lindsay Whitfield, ed. The Politics of Aid: African Strategies for Dealing with Donors (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).

12. Quoted in Hagmann and Reyntjens, “Aid and Authoritarianism in Africa,” 2.

13. Ibid., 2; Emmanuel, “With a Friend Like This…”

14. Gordon Crawford, Foreign Aid and Political Reform: A Comparative Analysis of Democracy Assistance and Political Conditionality (New York: Palgrave, 2001), 204; Olav Stokke, Aid and Political Conditionality (London: Cass, 1995): 44.

15. Whitfield, The Politics of Aid, Hagmann, and Reyntjens, “Aid and Authoritarianism in Africa.”

16. Ibid., Emmanuel, “With a Friend Like This…”; McKinlay and Little, “The French Aid Relationship: A Foreign Policy Model.”

17. Emmanuel, “With a Friend Like This…”

18. Larry Diamond, “Promoting Democracy in Africa: US and International Policies in Transition,” in Africa in World Politics, ed. John Harbeson and Donald Rothchild (Boulder: Westview Press, 1995), 5; William Easterly, The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good (New York: Penguin, 2006); William Easterly, “The Cartel of Good Intentions: The Problem of Bureaucracy in Foreign Aid,” Journal of Policy Reform 5, no. 4 (2003): 223–50.

19. Larry Diamond, “Promoting Democracy in Africa,” 255.

20. Patrick J. Ganahl, Corruption, Good Governance, and the African State: A Critical Analysis of the Political-Economic Foundations of Corruption in Sub-Saharan Africa (Potsdam: Potsdam Economic Studies Series/2, 2013), 4.

21. Hagmann and Reyntjens, “Aid and Authoritarianism in Africa.”

22. These are political systems where a formal transition to democracy has taken place but where authoritarianism practices and (informal) institutions continue to persist; see Lisa Raker, Alina Rocha Menocal, and Verena Fritz, Democratisation’s Third Wave and the Challenges of Democratic Deepening: Assessing International Democracy Assistance and Lessons Learned, Working Paper 1 (2007), v. http://www.odi.org.uk/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/publications-opinion-files/241.pdf (accessed May 30, 2018).

23. Although the country’s constitution actually provided for multiparty politics, this was and remains a rather de facto one-party system and not a de jure one. This Cameroonian brand of “ruling democracy” is characterized by the establishment of the single-party system designed to assure the domination of a handful of individuals through the sole political party that identified itself with the state.” See Mokam, “The Search for a Cameroonian Model of Democracy.”

24. Lindsay Whitfield, The Politics of Aid.

25. Ganahl, Corruption, Good Governance, 5.

26. See http://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/cameroon/eu_cameroon/index_fr.htm.

27. Despite the slowdown in the world economy orchestrated by the decline in world oil prices and insecurity in northern Cameroon, the country witnessed a 6 percent growth between 2014 and 2015. Although this growth subsided to 4.8 percent in 2016, Cameroon’s economy still compared favorably to that of the CEMAC member states. The real GDP of the CEMAC member states dropped to 1.5 percent in 2016, from 4–5 percent before the oil shock. “Relative to other CEMAC members, Cameroon’s growth relies on oil production and exports and more on public investment, which averaged 7.5 percent of GDP during 2014–2016.” See World Bank, Country Partnership Framework for the Republic of Cameroon for the period F17–FY21 (Report No.107896-CM), (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2017), 4.

28. The dismal failure of various modernization projects targeting the Pygmies of southeast Cameroon demonstrates that they are marginalized through discourses that present them as inferior and unable to speak for themselves. They have become “virtual citizens” following their eviction from their ancestral homeland in the name of conservation. They lack legal ownership over their land since the state of Cameroon claims monopoly over all parcels of land and forest from which they have been evicted to give way for conservation, mining, and logging. The creation of national parks as well as the Chad-Cameroon pipeline project tremendously threatened their human security; see Ngambouk Vitalis Pemunta, “Fortress Conservation, Wildlife Legislation, and the Baka Pygmies of Southeast Cameroon,” Geojournal. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10708-018-9906-z (Accessed November 22, 2018). Ngambouk Vitalis Pemunta, Culture, Human Rights, and Socio-legal Resistance against Female Genital Cutting Practices: An Anthropological Perspective (Hannover: VDM Verlag, Dr. Muller Publishers, 2011).

29. Gerry Gill and Simon Maxwell, “The Co-ordination of Development Co-operation in the European Union: A Review and Evaluation Proposal.” Working document, Policy and Operations Evaluation Department (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Netherlands, 2001); Christopher Stevens and Jane Kennan, EU-ACP Economic Partnership Agreements: The Effects of Reciprocity (Sussex: Institute of Development Studies, 2005).

30. Ibid.

31. Ibid.

32. Molua Njoke S. “The Role of European Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in the Development and Democratization of Cameroon: Challenges and Prospects” (Master’s Thesis in International and European Relations, Linkőping Universitet, Sweden, 2007), 7.

33. Ibid.

34. Konings, The Politics of Neoliberal Reforms.

35. John W. Forje, “Building a Vibrant State-Civil Society in Cameroon: Facing the Changes of the New Millenium.” Bulletin de L’APAD (En ligne) Itinéraires de “déflates” au Cameroun, 18 (1999). http://apad.revues.org/461 (accessed May 20, 2018), 4.

36. European Commission, “Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Union Parliament: The European Union’s Role in Third Countries” (Brussels, COM(2001) 252 Final, 2001), 4.

37. Molua, “The Role of European Non-Governmental Organizations,” 7; Elgström Ole and Goran Hyden, eds, Development and Democracy: What Have We Learned and How? (London: Routledge, 2000).

38. Ibid.

39. Ibid.

40. Pommerolle, “Donors and the Making of ‘Credible’ Elections,” 120.

41. Ibid.

42. Ibid.

43. Gordon Crawford, Foreign Aid and Political Conditionality: A Comparative Analysis of Democracy Assistance and Political Conditionality (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000).

44. Ibid., 9.

45. Seymour M. Lipset, ‘‘Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy,” American Political Science Review 53 (1959): 69–105, Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1960), 41.

46. Lipset, “Some Social Requisites of Democracy,” 75.

47. Lipset, Political Man, 41.

48. Julian Wucherpfennig and Deutsch Deutsch, “Modernization and Democracy: Theories and Evidence Revisited,” Living Reviews in Democracy 1, no. 1 (2009): 1.

49. European Commission, 1.

50. Ole and Hyden, Development and Democracy.

51. Ibid.

52. Richard Youngs, “Democracy Promotion: The Case of Europe Union Strategy,” CEPS Working Document No. 167 (October 2001) (accessed May 20, 2018), 1.

53. Ibid., 4.

54. Ibid.

55. Ibid.

56. R. D. McKinlay, and R. Little, “The French Aid Relationship: A Foreign Policy Model”; Wil Hout, “Governance beyond the European Consensus on Development.”

57. Zanger C Sabine, “Good Governance and European Aid: The Impact of Political Conditionality,” European Union Politics 1, no. 3 (2000): 301.

58. Stephen Dearden, “EU Development Policy: Delivering Aid Effectiveness.” Jean Monnet/Robert Schuman Paper Series 8, no. 10 (2008).

59. Ibid.

60. Ibid.

61. Raker et al., “Democratisation’s Third Wave and the Challenges of Democratic Deepening.”

62. Pommerolle, “Donors and the Making of Credible,” 34.

63. Ibid.

64. Ibid.

65. Ibid.

66. Ganahl, Corruption, Good Governance, 5.

67. Ibid., 6–7.

68. Jean-François Bayart, The State in Africa: The Politics of the Belly (Longman, 1993). William Reno, Warlord Politics and African States (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998).

69. Ganahl, Corruption, Good Governance, 7.

70. Ibid.

71. Ibid., 7.

72. Ibid., 9.

73. Dimpho Motsamai, The European Union’s Electoral Assistance: Perceptions of African Democracy Building (Stockholm: International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, 2010), 3.

74. Ibid.

75. European Parliament, Human Rights and Democracy. Fact sheets on the European Union (2018). http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/PERI/2017/600413/IPOL_PERI(2017)600413_EN.pdf.

76. Ibid.

77. Ibid.

78. See https://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/sectors/human-rights-and-governance_en (accessed November 15, 2018).

79. Ibid., 3. Motsamai, “The European Union’s Electoral Assistance,” 5; Zanger, “Good Governance and European Aid.”

80. European Commission, Methodological Guide on Electoral Assistance (Brussels: European Commission, 2006), 13.

81. Ibid.

82. See https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=LEGISSUM:r10105&from=EN (accessed November 6, 2018).

83. Joakim Nergelius and Eleonor Kristofferson, eds. Human Rights in Contemporary European Law. Swedish Studies in European Law, Vol. 6 (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2015), 36.

84. Joint Declaration by the EU Parliament, the Council and the Commission Concerning the protection of fundamental rights and the European Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedom (1977) OJC103/1, 6.

85. Council declaration on the situation in Uganda, adopted 21 June 1977, 10 Bull.EC6-1977, 92–93.

86. Joakim Nergelius and Eleonor Kristofferson, eds., Human Rights in Contemporary European Law.

87. Ibid., 71.

88. Zanger, “Good Governance and European Aid,” 294, 295.

89. Ibid., Felipe Gómez Isa et al., “Challenges to the Effectiveness of EU Human Rights and Democratisation Policies”; Paul Clist, “25 Years of Aid Allocation Practice.”

90. Ibid., 296.

91. Cameroon Tribune, February 5, 2014. http://www.camerooninfo.net/stories/0,58078,@,cameroun-union-europeenne-bons-et-mauvais-points-de-la-cooperation.html. lxv http://www.pasoc-cameroun.org (accessed November 8, 2018).

92. European External Action Service: Cameroon and EU.2016. eeas_-_cameroon_and_the_eu_-_2018-06–03.pdf (accessed May 25, 2018).

93. Cameroon Tribune.

94. Pommerolle, “Donors and the Making of ‘Credible’ Elections.”

95. European Communities, “Methodological Guide on Electoral Assistance.”

96. See http://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/cameroon/eu_cameroon/civil_society_dialogue/index_fr.htm (accessed June 1, 2018).

97. European Union, Evaluation à mi-parcours du PASC (Programme d’Appui à la Société Civile. Rapport final (2014). https://www.gopa.de/fr/projects/evaluation-mi-parcours-du-programme-dappui-la-societe-civile-pasc (accessed November 7, 2018).

98. Ibid.

99. See http://www.pasoc-cameroun.org (accessed November 15, 2018).

100. European Union, “Evaluation à mi-parcours du PASC.”

101. Ibid.

102. Motsamai, “The European Union’s Electoral Assistance,” 3.

103. See https://www.devex.com/news/despite-earlier-misgivings-eu-supports-electoral-process-in-cameroon-65822.

104. Pommerolle, “Donors and the Making of ‘Credible’ Elections.”

105. See https://www.devex.com/news/despite-earlier-misgivings-eu-supports-electoral-process-in-cameroon-65822.

106. Diamond, Politics in Developing Countries, Easterly, “The White Man’s Burden”; Ganahl, Corruption, Good Governance, 5.

107. Youngs, “Democracy Promotion,” 5.

108. Raker et al., “Democratisation’s Third Wave.”

109. Motsamai, “The European Union’s Electoral Assistance.”

110. Ibid., 7.

111. Ibid.

112. Ibid.

113. Crawford, “The European Union and Democracy Promotion,” 30.

114. Allen Michael et al., Democracy Promotion in a Transatlantic Perspective (Stockholm: Swedish Institute for European Policy Studies, 2009).

115. Garth Le Pere, Regionalism and Post Lomé Convention Trade Regime, Global Insight 1 (Johannesburg, South Africa, Institute for Global Dialogue, 2001), 4.

116. Allen Michael et al., Democracy Promotion.

117. Motsamai, “The European Union’s Electoral Assistance.”

118. Pommerolle, “Donors and the Making of ‘Credible’ Elections.”

119. Ganahl, Corruption, Good Governance; Reno, Warlord Politics; Bayart, The State in Africa.

120. Pemunta, Culture, Human Rights, and Socio-legal Resistance.

121. Raker et al., “Democratisation’s Third Wave,” 2.

122. Ibid.

123. David Mokam, “The Search for a Cameroonian Model of Democracy or the Search for the Domination of the State Party: 1966–2006,” Cadernos de Estudos Africanos 23 no. 1 (2012): 86–108.

124. Raker et al., “Democratisation’s Third Wave,” 14.

125. See Motsamai, “The European Union’s Electoral Assistance,” 3–4.

126. Raker, Menocal, and Fritz, “Democratisation’s Third Wave,” 2.

127. Bruce Russette, Grasping the Democratic Peace (Princeton: NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), Peter Burnell, Foreign Aid in a Changing World (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1997), James Meernik, Eric L. Krueger, and Steven C. Poe, “Testing Models of US Foreign Policy: Foreign Aid during and After the Cold War,” Journal of Politics 60, no. 1 (1998): 63–85.

128. Ibid.

129. Ngambouk Vitalis Pemunta, “Homosexuality as ‘UnAfrican’: Heteronormativity, Power, and Ambivalence in Cameroon,” in Concurrences in Postcolonial Research: Perspectives, Methodologies, and Engagements, ed. Ngambouk Vitalis Pemunta (Hannover: Ibidem Press), 80–110.

130. David H. Lumsdaine, Moral Vision in International Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), 63.

131. Ibid.

132. Pemunta, “Homosexuality as “UnAfrican.”

133. See http://www.inquisitr.com/1219892/two-ugandan-men-to-face-court-on-homosexualit-charges/#iphPCSyMQ3FuDABm.99 (accessed September 17, 2017).

134. Burnell, Foreign Aid, 16.

135. Zanger, “Good Governance and European Aid,” 298; Burnell, Foreign Aid.

136. R. D. McKinlay and R. Little, “The French Aid Relationship: A Foreign Policy Model.”

137. Dearden, “EU Development Policy,” 3; Felipe Gómez et al., “Challenges to the Effectiveness of EU Human Rights and Democratisation Policies,” 11. Clist, “25 Years of Aid Allocation Practice.”

138. Ibid., 3.

139. Lumsdaine, Moral Vision.

140. Zanger, “Good Governance and European Aid,” 299.

141. Ibid., 300, Hout, “Governance beyond the European Consensus on Development, 11.

142. Ibid., 300.

143. John White, The Politics of Foreign Aid (London: Bodley Head, 1974), 24.

144. Burnell, Foreign Aid.

145. Zanger, “Good Governance and European Aid,” 300.

146. Dearden S, “EU Development Policy,” 2.

147. Maurizio Carbone, Between EU Actorness and Aid Effectiveness: The Logics of EU Aid to Sub-Saharan Africa. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Societå Italiana di Scienza Politica (SISP), (University of Rome III, 13–15 September 2012), 3–4, 5.

148. Acharya Anarb, Ana Teresa Fuzzo de Lima, and Mick Moore, “Proliferation and Fragmentation: transactions Costs and Value of Aid,” Journal of Development Studies 42 (2006): 1–21.

149. Ngambouk Vitalis Pemunta, “Neoliberal Peace and the Development Deficit in Post-conflict Sierra Leone,” International Journal of Development Issues, 11, no. 3 (2012): 192–207.

150. Arne Bigsten, “Coordination et utilisations des aides,” Revue d’economie du developpement 20 (2006): 77–103, 2006.

151. Carbone, “Between EU Actorness.”

152. Bigsten, “Coordination et utilisations des aides.”

153. Martin Holland and Mathew Doidge, Development Policy of the European Union (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 264.

154. Carbone, “Between EU Actorness,” 5.

155. Holland and Doidge, “Development Policy,” 7.

156. Ibid.

157. See Karin Arts and Anna K. Dickson, eds., EU Development Cooperation: From Model to Symbol (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004); Carbone, “Between EU Actorness.’’

158. Carbone, “Between EU Actorness,” 6.

159. Ibid.

160. Gwénaëlle Corre, ed. Whither EC Aid? Compendium (Maastricht: ECDPM, 2009).

161. Interview with Civil Society Activist, April 25, 2014.

162. Carbone M, “Between EU Actorness,” 9.

163. Ibid., 9, Niels Keijzer and Paul Engel, Donor Harmonization and the EU: In risk of a Two-speed Europe (Bonn: Development + Cooperation, 2008), 2.

164. Carbone, “Between EU Actorness,” 9.

165. Ibid.

166. Ibid., 9.

167. Ganahl, Corruption, Good Governance, 5.

168. Hout, “Governance beyond the European Consensus on Development,” 11.

169. Felipe Gómez et al., “Challenges to the Effectiveness of EU Human Rights and Democratisation Policies,” iii.

170. Carbone, “Between EU Actorness,” 9.

171. Emmanuel, “With a Friend Like This…”

172. Maurizio Carbone, “Between EU Actorness and Aid Effectiveness.”

173. Ibid.

174. Mokam, “The Search for a Cameroonian Model of Democracy.”

175. African Elections Database, http://africanelections.tripod.com/cm.html#2011_Presidential_Election (accessed November 13, 2018).

176. Whitfield, The Politics of Aid.

177. European Commission: Support to Elections, https://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/sectors/human-rights-and-governance/democracy-and-human-rights/election-observation-missions-0_en (accessed November 13, 2018).

178. Michael A. Yanou, “Democracy in Cameroon: A Socio-Legal Appraisal.” Law and Politics in Africa, Asia, and Latin America 3, no. 1 (2013): 1.

179. Larry Diamond, “Promoting Democracy in Africa,” 5; Easterly, The White Man’s Burden; Easterly, “The Cartel of Good Intentions.”

180. European Commission, “Methodological Guide on Electoral Assistance.”