Agricultural Value Chain Transformation, Donor Investment and Agroecological Resilience in Cameroon: A Critical Review

Cameroon's agricultural sector has undergone six decades of structural change, moving from colonial-era export monocultures through state-led marketing boards, structural adjustment and liberalisation, and, more recently, donor-financed value chain development programmes layered onto an emerging agroecological resilience agenda. This review synthesises the peer-reviewed and institutional evidence on how these successive policy regimes have shaped the performance of Cameroon's principal agricultural value chains, the scale and modality of donor and multilateral investment, and the extent to which value chain upgrading has been compatible with ecological sustainability and climate resilience among smallholder producers. Drawing on a narrative synthesis of English-language academic literature, supplemented by classical value chain theory and authoritative multilateral reports, the review traces the historical trajectory of cocoa, cassava, oil palm and other commodity chains; assesses the effectiveness and limitations of donor-financed interventions, including those of the African Development Bank, the World Bank and bilateral partners; and examines land tenure, gender and climate dimensions that mediate outcomes for smallholder households. The evidence indicates that donor investment has generated measurable productivity and market-access gains in discrete project areas but has frequently reproduced pre-existing asymmetries of land, gender and market power, while agroecological and agroforestry-based resilience strategies remain under-resourced relative to conventional input-intensive upgrading pathways. The review concludes that a more coherent alignment between value chain financing instruments and agroecological principles is required if Cameroon's agricultural transformation is to deliver durable rural livelihoods alongside export competitiveness.