The Minister of Livestock, Fisheries and Animal Industries received today, 10 November 2025, the delegation of the International Labour Office of the International Labour Organization, led by Mr. Claude YAO KOUAME, Director of the ILO Technical Support Team for Decent Work for Central Africa and Country Office for Cameroon.

The objective of this working session was to strengthen MINEPIA/ILO collaboration through the PDCVEP/ILO partnership in entrepreneurship.

The main points of exchange focused on youth and women’s entrepreneurship in Cameroon, as well as on the strengthening of incentives and mechanisms to arouse the desire to undertake among young people and women (MINDSET), in order to be the entrepreneurs of tomorrow, in accordance with the inauguration speech of the President of the Republic of Cameroon, H.E. Mr. Paul Biya,  of November 6, 2025, and I quote:

” Promotion of business development in sectors with high potential for job creation, such as digital, mining, agriculture and services.”

To this end, MINEPIA recalled that, as part of the support for young people and women, many actions are undertaken within its ministerial department, such as:

(i) the provision of financial resources to the Bank for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises within the framework of the PIISAH; (ii) the institutionalization of business plans as a second deliverable to be provided by learners at the end of their training in MINEPIA’s training schools; and (iii) sharing experiences through success stories via the media.

Subsequently, Mr. Claude YAO KOUAME gave an update on the activities carried out by the ILO within the framework of the collaboration agreement with the PDCVEP project. Thus, ILO tools, in particular SIYB (Manage My Business), were made available to young people, and the results were appreciated by the AfDB during the supervision mission. Nevertheless, given the fact that the said agreement will end in December and that other actions are underway, it would be desirable that an amendment could be signed between the stakeholders in order to finalize the ongoing activities. These include the approval of training standards for meat professions and the training of trainers.

At the end of the meeting, MINEPIA encouraged the many initiatives. In addition, he instructed the representatives of the PDCVEP project to continue the process of supporting the actors (young and women) of the meat profession.