Applications have been flowing into the pfs-aie.cm platform since September 7, with a deadline of October 17, 2026: it's the window for the second round of Cameroon's Business Plan Competition, run by the Cameroonian state and the World Bank through the Adaptive Social Safety Nets and Economic Inclusion Project. A thousand young promoters aged 18 to 35 are competing for financing worth five to ten million CFA francs -- a rare sum for businesses too young to have a bank track record.
The barrier this scheme is trying to remove is familiar to any first-time Cameroonian entrepreneur: traditional banks demand years of financial history, something a one- to three-year-old business simply cannot provide. By betting on potential rather than balance sheets, the programme targets this financing blind spot directly -- the exact point where most young ventures run out of steam for lack of seed capital.
The scheme is concentrated in six cities -- Yaoundé, Douala, Bamenda, Buea, Maroua and Garoua -- with priority given to sectors the government considers strategic: agriculture, processing, digital and services. But money alone doesn't make a project viable: the programme's real value lies in its three-part structure of competition, training and post-funding monitoring, meant to support winners well beyond the initial payout.
Still, that support only means something if it holds over time. A first round has already taken place, and the number of jobs it actually created was never made public -- a blind spot that will weigh on the credibility of the second. The real verdict won't come with the announcement of the 1,000 winners, but in the activity reports out of Douala or Maroua, a year or two from now.
