ABSTRACT

Until recently Cameroon was lauded by many observers, including World Bank staff, as one of the most prosperous and most stable countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Today, this rosy assessment has been replaced by gloom. The country is facing an unprecedented economic and political crisis. After some initial hesitation, the Cameroonian government could not escape during the deteriorating economic situation from calling upon the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank for the implementation of a Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP). It was soon required to conform to the new standards of these financial institutions, linking structural adjustment to democratization. So, in addition to the economic conditionality that plagued African states during much of the 1980s, it was also obliged to accept ‘political conditionality’.