Two new manuals for development workers by Kimeng Nfor Francis have just been published.
Cameroon’s development repertoire has been boosted by the recent publication of two new manuals by Kimeng Nfor Francis, a former Sub-Director for Community Development in the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, MINADER and presently Head of Department of International Development at LEAD University for International Development, Yaounde, Cameroon.
The first manual entitled ‘Patterns For Sustainable Development,’ has 14 chapters and handles topics like how to assist community people design village development plans, types of resources and their appropriateness for development, strategies and principles for mobilising resources for development and key grant-writing techniques for raising funds for group and community projects.
The second entitled ‘Making A Difference In Sustainable Development,’ has 15 chapters and deals with subjects like how to make a difference in sustainable development, basic concepts of poverty and indicators for measuring development, participatory and paternalistic approaches to development, how to approach and work with community people, and how to prepare and conduct development meetings.
The foreword to the two books is written by Dr Steve Ogan, a former university lecturer from Nigeria now turned evangelist and publisher. “Many projects and programmes have been started which made no difference in the lives of those for whom they were intended. This is often because the initiators of these projects are not interested in the end users ... ‘Making A Difference In Sustainable Development’ is indeed a user-friendly manual. It is compulsory reading for individuals, institutions and nations engaged in sustainable development,” recommends Dr Ogan.
Illustrated with relevant pictures, diagrams and sketches, the manuals are written in simple English and meant for the ordinary reader as well as development workers, researchers, university staff and Non-governmental Organisation, NGO workers. They all handle the concept of development from the simple village project that might only require hundreds of thousands of FCFA to complete to more complex ones at regional or national levels that cost hundreds of millions of FCFA.
