On 18 and 19 February, Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon, hosted the 3rd edition of the National Congress on Business Incubation in Cameroon (CONIEC). Under the theme ‘Structuring business incubation in Cameroon, a lever for accelerating the import substitution policy’, it aims to establish an effective strategy for structuring business incubation in the Central African country, strengthen local production, reduce dependence on imports and promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth.
From 18 to 19 February, Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon, hosted the 3rd edition of the National Congress on Business Incubation in Cameroon (CONIEC), which aims to establish an effective strategy to structure business incubation in the Central African country, strengthen local production, reduce dependence on imports and promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth. According to the government, incubation structures must take ownership of the import substitution policy and implement it. In this way, these incubators could play a crucial role in the structural transformation of the Cameroonian economy by promoting innovation, competitiveness and sustainability of local SMEs and start-ups.
We have identified incubator business structures as having the potential to provide specialised incubation for young promoters and business actors, so that they can develop specialised projects in these incubator business centres that are clearly in line with the priorities of the national development strategies, and this will accelerate our development process.
Achille BASSILEKIN III, Minister of SME, Social Economy and Crafts
Under the theme « Structuring business incubation activity in Cameroon, a lever for accelerating the import substitution policy », CONIEC 2025 highlighted the need to move from general incubation to specialised incubation, develop indicators to assess the impact of incubation structures on economic and social inclusion, to finance projects with high growth potential in priority sectors that create jobs and wealth, and to raise awareness among informal incubation structures of the importance of formalising them, among other actions.
As managers of business incubators, we must first make sure that all our incubators are formalised, and once we have formalised our incubators, we must specialise them, we must choose a theme or topic in which we would support SMEs and start-ups.
LAGOUTE MELY Monique, Director, Cameroon Specialised Space Incubator
It should be noted that the Cameroonian government has taken significant initiatives in favour of incubators over the years. Since 2012, the Ministry of Small and Medium Enterprises has launched a national programme to promote the creation of incubators in several state universities and grandes écoles, as well as a pilot national incubator.
