Policies and strategies
- The 1996 Law on the Environment and the 1998 Law on Water are the cornerstones of the current legislation on water.
- Access to safe drinking water and appropriate sanitation services are identified as priorities in Cameroon's Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (Document de Stratégie de Réduction de la Pauvreté - DSRP) dated from 2003.
- Cameroon's National Water and Sanitation Policy incorporates the guiding principles of the Millennium Development Goals.
Institutions
- A number of ministries, such as the Ministry of Energy and Water Resources (Ministère de l'Energie et de l'Eau - MINEE), the Ministry of Urban Development and Housing (Ministère du Développement Urbain et de l'Habitat - MDUH), the Ministry of Public Health (Ministère de la Santé Publique) etc., are concerned with water and sanitation. Sector coordination is the responsibility of the MINEE: It is in charge of designing and implementing the national policy, as well as coordinating and monitoring operations and projects in both urban and rural areas.
- A National Water Committee (Comité National de l'Eau - CNE) was formed as a consultative body to coordinate activities in the water sector. The committee proposes actions to the government to assure the conservation, protection and sustainable use of water resources. It also makes recommendations on the development and implementation of sustainable water and sanitation projects.
- Other actors like the private sector (the Cameroon Water Utilities Corporation CAMWATER and the electric company AES-SONEL) and NGOs play an important role in the mobilization and management of water resources.
- Principal urban centres are supplied with potable water by CAMWATER while the rural population makes use of groundwater resources.
- In the sanitation sub-sector, the MINEE's responsibility is limited to the management of wastewater. The Urban and Rural Land Development Mission (Mission d'Aménagement et d'Équipement des Terrains Urbains et Ruraux - MAETUR), under supervision of the Ministry of State Property and Land Affairs (Ministère des Domaines et des Affaires Foncières - MINDAF), is responsible for putting in place water supply and sanitation systems in low-cost housing estates. So-called urban communities are in charge of managing sanitation services and the use of equipment.
