Ask a mayor what decentralisation means, and you are unlikely to get a lecture on constitutional law. You are more likely to hear about delayed transfers, unfinished projects, procurement rules and the long wait between a decision being made and the money arriving to make it possible. On paper, local government is about bringing power closer to the people. In practice, many local authorities discover that authority and the ability to act are not always the same thing. Somewhere between the promise and the project, implementation becomes the real story.

That is striking because Cameroon has never lacked ambition. When the Constitution was amended in 1996, it declared the country a decentralised unitary State, committing to a system in which regional and local authorities would play a central role in development. That commitment was reinforced by the General Code of Regional and Local Authorities, Vision 2035 and the National Development Strategy 2020–2030 (NDS30). Together, they present a coherent vision: decisions made closer to communities should lead to more responsive governance, stronger local economies and better public services.

Few would argue with that vision. The harder question is why it has remained so difficult to realise.

Independent assessments by the World Bank and the African Development Bank point to an answer that is both simple and uncomfortable. Cameroon’s greatest challenge is not the absence of plans but the difficulty of implementing them. Vision 2035 projected average economic growth of about 7.6 per cent, yet the World Bank estimates growth averaged roughly 2.8 per cent over the past five years. The gap is not merely economic; it reflects persistent challenges in institutional coordination, project execution and public sector capability. In other words, the journey from policy to delivery has often proved longer than expected.

Nothing illustrates that journey better than public finance. Decentralisation does not simply require legal authority; it requires resources to match it. The law provides that at least 15 per cent of eligible State revenue should be transferred to regional and local authorities. Yet the Supreme Court found that only 6.11 per cent reached councils through the General Decentralisation Grant during the period under review. For a council responsible for maintaining roads, managing markets, collecting waste or expanding basic services, delayed or insufficient transfers are not administrative inconveniences. They shape what can and cannot be delivered.

But stopping the story there would be misleading.

The same Supreme Court audits that identified gaps in fiscal transfers also found recurring weaknesses within local councils themselves. Reviews of Nkongsamba, Garoua and Makenene revealed unrealistic budgeting, procurement deficiencies, weak financial controls and incomplete projects. In Nkongsamba, for example, nearly FCFA 489 million in expected excise-duty transfers had not been received, while capital spending averaged only about FCFA 3,079 per resident. Yet the audits also documented signs of progress. Garoua was recognised as Cameroon’s cleanest municipality in 2023, demonstrating that effective local governance remains possible even within existing constraints. The evidence points to a more nuanced conclusion: resources matter, but so do leadership, administrative capacity and sound financial management.

This is where the debate moves beyond the question of centralisation itself. Harvard’s Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA) framework argues that development is driven less by institutional design than by institutions that learn, adapt and solve problems over time. Reflecting on the implementation of Cameroon’s National Development Strategy, senior civil administrator Boris Owona reaches much the same conclusion, emphasising that meaningful reform depends on capable institutions, stronger coordination and continuous learning across every level of government.

Perhaps, then, the real cost of centralisation has been misunderstood. It is not simply that decisions are made in Yaoundé rather than in council chambers across the country. It is that every step between a decision on paper and a project on the ground introduces another opportunity for delay, fragmentation or failure. Nearly thirty years after decentralisation became a constitutional promise, Cameroon has no shortage of laws, strategies or ambition. The unfinished task is ensuring that institutions, from ministries in Yaoundé to councils in Nkongsamba, Garoua and Makenene have the resources, capability and accountability to turn constitutional ambition into everyday reality.