Chede was privileged to be selected in April 2011 by the SNV-supported Local Capacity Development Facility (LCDF Cameroon), of which Chede is a founding member, to serve as its Regional Focal Point (RFP) for the South West, with seat in Kumba, the business capital of the South West, where LCDF organized its very first marketplace of supply and demand stakeholders in June 2011.
For the time being and until further notice, LCDF focuses on two areas of work:
- (a) non-timber forest products (NTFPs), and
- (b) pastoral activities.
NTFPs are by far the most dominant in the South West region. These products also happen to be part of the family of food products Chede currently processes and markets locally and externally (e.g. Gnetum/eru, palm wine, honey, or snails). Accordingly, Chede is expected to add precious industrial and marketing experience and value to its partnership with LCDF in building the capacities of partners concerned one way or another with NFTPs in the South West region of Cameroon.
Moreover, Chede and LCDF also share, coincidentally, the same holistic value-chain approach in supporting the development of stakeholder capacities, extending from research/seeds/production stages to processing and marketing – a chain that involves over 10 different professional stages of intermediation. As can be seen, therefore, Chede not only shares with LCDF the same village-oriented development approach but also the span of focus on developing capacities across the full spectrum of each product’s commercial lifespan.
Not surprisingly, therefore, LCDF has set forth Terms of Reference (ToR) for its RFPs which are by and large similar to the job descriptions of Chede’s Field Managers, such as in Muambong, Bangem, and Kumba more recently.