Cameroon Leans on CFAF 200 Billion Guarantees to Unlock Youth Credit

By Olivia Hart

Cameroon's Finance Minister Louis Paul Motaze has put a CFAF 200 billion state guarantee facility at the center of a new push to widen bank credit for young and women entrepreneurs — roughly $330 million in coverage the government says can substitute for the collateral borrowers cannot provide. He outlined the approach at the 12th Cameroon Business Forum, held in Douala on October 22–23, 2026.

The promise comes with a gap. The Ministry of Finance (MINFI) did not confirm whether the CFAF 200 billion figure Motaze cited is the same mechanism created in 2023, and it released no updated numbers on how much financing the facility has actually supported since then.

Why the guarantees matter now

Access to finance is the single biggest complaint Cameroonian businesses raise. In the World Bank's 2024 Enterprise Survey, 28.8% of the 615 firms polled named access to finance as their principal operational obstacle — nearly three in ten companies.

The trend is worsening, not improving. In an assessment published in April 2026, the International Monetary Fund reported that the share of firms citing financing as their main obstacle climbed from 15% in 2009 to roughly 29% in 2024 — nearly doubling over fifteen years. The IMF also flagged limited financial-sector development as a direct brake on business investment, expansion and innovation.

The takeaway: the guarantee policy targets the country's most-cited business constraint, but the government has not yet shown deployment data to prove the instrument is working.

How the 2023 mechanism is structured

Cameroon built the guarantee scheme in 2023 through agreements with two industry bodies:

• The Professional Association of Credit Institutions of Cameroon (APECCAM), representing banks
• The National Association of Microfinance Institutions of Cameroon (ANEMCAM)

According to APECCAM, CFAF 170 billion of the total backs bank lending — about 85% — while CFAF 30 billion covers loans issued by microfinance institutions, the segment most likely to serve small and young borrowers.

The structure leaves credit risk discipline with lenders. The government guarantees part of eligible loans, but banks and microfinance institutions still assess applications and decide whether borrowers meet their own lending requirements. That design limits moral hazard, though it also means guarantees alone cannot force banks to lend.

The caveat: no published figure shows how many loans the mechanism has actually unlocked in three years of existence.

What did Motaze actually say?

The minister framed guarantees as one half of the equation. The other half is the quality of the projects themselves.

Beyond state backing, Motaze stressed that access to financing depends on the quality of the projects submitted to banks. Entrepreneurs need well-structured business plans, supporting documentation and a clear understanding of lenders' requirements to improve their chances of securing credit.

"We do not promote mediocrity, but what is good," the finance minister said, according to MINFI.

The ministry said the government's objective is to support viable projects that meet quality standards and align with national development priorities — a formulation that leaves undefined who judges "viability" and by what criteria.

Who was in the room

The Douala forum brought together three ministers:

• Louis Paul Motaze, Finance
• Achille Bassilekin III, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises, Social Economy and Handicrafts
• Henri Eyebe Ayissi, Minister of State Property, Surveys and Land Tenure, who moderated the discussions

Talks also covered entrepreneurship training, business incubation, innovation and technical assistance. Participants further pressed for better information about existing financial support programs, so entrepreneurs can actually find the assistance already on offer — an implicit acknowledgment that programs exist on paper but fail to reach their intended users.

What happens next

The IMF's April 2026 assessment called for reforms to deepen financial intermediation and improve private-sector access to credit across the board. Cameroon's answer, so far, is a collateral substitute created in 2023 plus an exhortation for better business plans.

Whether that combination moves the 29% figure will depend on deployment the ministry has not yet disclosed.