Across Cameroon's Dja landscape, a critical biodiversity corridor spanning four million hectares, local communities, Indigenous Peoples, and municipal authorities have long faced significant governance challenges that threatened both conservation goals and community rights. Fragmented decision-making processes, limited representation of marginalized groups in land-use planning, and weak coordination between traditional and formal governance systems have created obstacles to sustainable development.
Today, these challenges are being directly addressed. The GEF-8 Dja Landscape Project has formalized strategic partnerships. To date, five specialized organizations are collaborating to establish inclusive, rights-based governance systems that will transform how communities manage their natural resources.
Closing the governance gap
For years, municipal councils across Somalomo, Messok, Mintom, and Lomié have struggled with governance and inclusive infrastructure such as Municipal Landscape Management Committees which undermine the voices minorities: Indigenous Peoples, particularly the Baka communities, have not been efficiently included in land-use decisions affecting their ancestral territories. Women's voices remain largely absent from resource management forums despite their central role in livelihoods. Youth perspectives are rarely integrated into planning processes. Conflicts over land and resources often lack transparent resolution mechanisms, eroding trust between communities and authorities.
These gaps have undermined conservation efforts while deepening social vulnerabilities and perpetuating historical marginalization. The newly announced partnerships directly target these structural challenges through coordinated, community-centered interventions.
"Conservation efforts without the communities is a recipe for failure. These partnerships with stakeholders of the Dja mark a new social contract for the Landscape"
FIVE PARTNERS, ONE TRANSFORMATIVE VISION
Each technical partner brings specialized expertise to address specific governance barriers:
APROSPEN leverages two decades of experience working with Indigenous communities to establish Municipal Land Use Management Committees (MLMCs) and Landscape Management Boards (LMBs) in Lomié. Their proven track record in participatory mapping, Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), and gender-transformative approaches ensure that governance structures are genuinely representative and rights-based.
ACDEF mobilizes communities in Somalomo and Messok, addressing the historical exclusion of producers' groups and Indigenous communities from governance spaces. Through inclusive dialogue and capacity strengthening, they are co-designing governance mechanisms that reflect diverse community priorities.
AIWO-CAN, partnering through REPALEAC/OKANI, tackles the absence of accountability mechanisms by establishing functional grievance redress mechanism. This critical intervention provides communities with safe channels to voice concerns, seek redress, and hold authorities accountable—essential safeguards for protecting human rights.
ECO-PH addresses municipal planning gaps in Mintom, Djoum and Oveng by integrating conservation and community priorities into formal land-use instruments. Their support helps councils create MLMCs that bridge customary and statutory governance systems while building local capacity for participatory monitoring.
OKANI strengthens Indigenous rights awareness, ensuring that Baka communities and other IPLCs remain central to governance reforms. Their leadership amplifies Indigenous voices and integrates traditional knowledge into landscape stewardship.
"Nothing for them without them. As linchpins of the Dja Landscape, bringing IPLCs onboard the decision apparatus is indispensable to achieving their aspirations that transcends generations” Project Management Unit, Dja Landscape Project
From exclusion to empowerment
This coordinated partnership approach represents more than institutional capacity building—it signifies a fundamental shift toward inclusive, equitable governance. By the end of the first year of implementation, each municipality will have formally recognized MLMCs that shall eventually culminate into a global MLMC for the Dja landscape, with balanced stakeholder representation, including Indigenous Peoples and women in leadership positions. Communities will have accessible grievance redress mechanisms protecting their rights. Municipal planning instruments will reflect community priorities alongside conservation objectives.
Gender-transformative approaches will create structural opportunities for women's meaningful leadership in resource governance, moving beyond token representation to genuine decision-making power.
“Conservation and development are complementary, not competitive. Empowering IPLCs to co-decide with authorities strengthens shared governance and delivers lasting benefits for all.” — Project Management Unit, Dja Landscape Project
Sustaining the landscape, sustaining communities
The Dja landscape's ecological integrity is inseparable from the rights and well-being of communities who have stewarded these forests for generations. By addressing governance deficits that have undermined both conservation and social equity, this partnership-driven approach models how inclusive institutions can advance environmental and development objectives simultaneously.
As these governance systems take root, they promise lasting impact: communities equipped to shape their development pathways, Indigenous rights respected and protected, women's leadership normalized in public decision-making, and the Dja landscape's biodiversity sustained through accountable, community-anchored stewardship.
This is governance transformation in action—powered by partnership, grounded in rights, and designed for lasting change.