Description
In October 2017, Cameroon descended into violent conflict between the dominant francophone government and armed separatists in its two anglophone regions. Since then, the conflict which is ongoing has resulted in the death of over 3,000 people, with over 750,000 displaced and 1.3 million in need of humanitarian relief. Despite its devastating outcomes, the anglophone conflict remains one of the highly neglected conflicts both on international media, academia and policy platforms. Moreover, the role and contributions of civil society groups towards resolving the conflict is hardly discussed and nuanced especially within academia. Thus, to contribute to the discourse on peacebuilding from below, this paper provides a nuanced discussion on the local peace efforts of civil society groups in the resolution of the anglophone conflict in Cameroon. The paper draws on a research we conducted in Cameroon in January 2020. Ultimately, the paper first highlights factors that led to the conflict, followed by a discussion on the impact of the conflict since it began in 2017. Subsequently it discusses some of the contributions of civil society groups towards the mitigation of the conflict as well as challenges impeding their peace efforts.
