20 million German tax euros for the forests of Cameroon

The German government gives 20 million euros to the corrupt government in Cameroon for the preservation of their forests. The government coalition doesn't know whether the spending will bring anything. But they know that they want to pay another 10 million euros.

Cameroon is ruled by authoritarian rule and freedom of expression is severely restricted. Corruption and violations of human rights are widespread, for example torture and arbitrary arrests occur regularly.” It really doesn't take much research to find out something about the friendly government in northwest Africa. All you need to do is look at the Wikipedia entry. This can be supplemented by information from the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, which confirms this information.

What else is worth knowing about Cameroon? Germany supports the government, which is considered “authoritarian”, restricts freedom of expression and under which torture occurs regularly. Germany, which invented feminist foreign policy, pledged 20 million euros to this sympathetic government last year alone. To better protect the forests in Cameroon. The federal government announced this in response to a request from Dietmar Friedhoff, Markus Frohnmaier and Edgar Naujok (all AfD).

What do these expenses look like in practice? This year, 12.4 million euros of tax money will go to “improved forest management” alone. Specifically, this money goes to the “implementation of sustainable land use planning” and the “expansion of environmental education”. The question arises as to whether the expenditure is at least worth it. But the federal government doesn't know that yet: "The evaluations are still being prepared." The federal government also doesn't yet know whether the partners in Cameroon believe in these projects strongly enough to support them with their own money. The federal government only knows that the money has been misused in two previous cases.

It is still unclear whether the projects will achieve anything. Or whether Cameroon spends even a cent on it. But the traffic light is already absolutely certain on one point: another ten million German tax euros should flow by 2027. At least in German development aid there is no such thing as a shortage of resources.

Source: Tichys Einblick