He made the call while visiting IFAD sponsored projects in Bikogo yesterday.

The visiting President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development, Lennart Bage, has called on the rural people in Cameroon to make good use of development assistance. He said IFAD and government can only help but the villagers have to translate the assistance to concrete action and make it sustainable. The IFAD President was speaking in Bikogo village in the Centre Province while visiting projects sponsored by his organisation in the area. He stressed on the need for the people to create income generating agricultural activities so as to spur development. Lennart Bage said he was impressed by what he has seen and requested that micro-finance should reach out to the population so as to enable them carry out projects.

The President of the Bikogo village community, Mono Tsalla, said Mr Bage's visit was a memorable day for the people of the village. He expressed gratitude to the IFAD boss for the support his organisation has been providing to the village. He said IFAD had built capacities on income generating activities such as poultry and fish farming, rearing of pigs, as well as built two classrooms and a pumping well in Bikogo village. He called on IFAD to extend the project of assistance to community development to other villages in the country so that all Cameroonians should have a better life.

The visit took the IFAD boss to a fish pond run by Bikogo Fish Farmers association, a pig rearing and fattening project run by a common initiative group known as GIC CLD of Bikogo, a pumping well as well as two classrooms constructed with the assistance of IFAD. Also present were women groups from all over the Lekie division who exhibited improved foodstuffs introduced by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and other development partners. Lennart Bage was made honorary chief of Minkoa village as sign of gratitude for the assistance IFAD has been providing to the people.

In a related story, the IFAD President on Tuesday November 27 commended Cameroon's effort towards establishing an agricultural policy. He however stressed on the need for viable statistics on agriculture in the country. "If the figures are wrong, then, we make the wrong decisions," he said during a round table conference with government and OCDE officials on the implementation of the project of assistance to African agriculture, P3A. The IFAD president was accompanied on the field trip by the Minister of State, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Jean Nkuete and other close aides.