Economie
Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations: a game-changer for Cameroon’s infrastructure financing
Cameroon, like most African economies, has struggled for years with shrinking access to traditional external financing options such as concessional multilateral loans, official development aid, and increasingly expensive international bond markets.
“Cameroon, like the majority of African economies, has faced for several years a contraction in access to traditional external financing (concessional multilateral loans, official development aid, international bond markets that have become more expensive). In this context, mobilizing domestic savings—both public and private—has become a strategic imperative. This is precisely the role of the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations (CDEC), operationalized on 20 January 2023 by presidential decree, fifteen years after its legal creation through the 2008 law,” explains observer Patrick Duprix Anicet Mani.
Proven model: lessons from the French Deposit and Consignment Fund
The French experience demonstrates how a deposit fund can transform dormant savings into a structural development tool through three key mechanisms:
- Centralization of regulated resources: Collecting regulated savings (Livret A, notary funds, inactive accounts) through a secure public institution.
- Term transformation: Converting short-term deposits into long-term loans backed by state guarantees.
- Leverage effect: Every euro of centralized savings finances essential infrastructure (social housing, urban renewal, fiber optics, transport).
The Cameroonian CDEC replicates this structure, tasked with collecting, securing, and optimizing idle resources over the long term while aligning them with public policy goals.
CDEC’s progress: measurable momentum
Available data confirms the institution’s early dynamism:
Legal framework and mobilizable resources
The 2008 law and its 2011 implementing decree classify CDEC resources into four categories: deposits (notary funds, inactive bank accounts), administrative consignments (public market guarantees), judicial consignments (release orders, judicial settlements), and a fourth assimilated category.
Coercive collection mechanism
A Prime Ministerial decree issued on 1 December 2023 mandated banks, insurers, notaries, and court clerks to transfer consigned funds within a specified timeframe, under penalty of external audits and late payment interest calculated at the BEAC’s marginal lending rate plus two percentage points—a binding legal device ensuring resource growth.
Three-year results
General Director Richard Evina Obam announced the centralization of over 151 billion XAF (approximately 260 million USD) within three years of operations—a significant amount but still far below identified potential (earlier estimates suggested over 1,000 billion XAF in dormant funds within the banking system).
Infrastructure transformation tool: the dedicated banking subsidiary
The most critical element for infrastructure ambitions is the proposed banking subsidiary, with feasibility studies launched in February 2025. This subsidiary is designed to:
- Support the State, decentralized territorial collectivities, and businesses in raising funds for infrastructure projects.
- Assist SMEs in participating in public procurement.
- Facilitate IPOs and business opportunity assessments.
- Offer long-term products (loans, guarantees, leasing) tailored to Cameroonian actors.
This function structurally aligns CDEC with the French Caisse des Dépôts’ Banque des Territoires model: transitioning from a mere regulator of regulated funds to a patient, long-term investor in the real economy.
Potential application areas in Cameroon
- Housing: Social housing financing, the 10,000 housing program.
- Urban infrastructure: Urban roads, sanitation in Yaoundé/Douala.
- Digital: Expanding high-speed broadband coverage beyond major cities.
- Local authorities: Financing decentralized territorial collectivities.
- Transport: Road corridors, Kribi port, rail hub.
Success factors and key considerations
Comparative analysis highlights critical prerequisites to prevent CDEC from remaining an underutilized tool:
- Effective collection: Persistent resistance from some banks to transfer due funds (only one institution, Allianz Cameroon, completed transfers by late 2023) shows resource mobilization remains a work in progress.
- Governance and transparency: Credibility with depositors and consignors directly impacts the volume of voluntary deposits.
- Technical expertise: Unlike a simple depositary, infrastructure financing requires project finance engineering, risk assessment, and guarantee structuring skills.
- Coordination with other financiers: Avoiding duplication and maximizing leverage by aligning with other stakeholders (implied Cameroonian Bpifrance, multilateral donors, Treasury).
Conclusion: CDEC now boasts the legal, institutional, and operational foundations to become a genuine infrastructure development tool, following the French Deposit and Consignment Fund model. Its ability to transform dormant regulated savings—currently estimated in the hundreds of billions of XAF—into long-term financing for infrastructure represents a credible endogenous response to scarce external financing. The upcoming launch of a dedicated banking subsidiary marks the decisive shift from a collection-focused logic to a structuring investment approach. Success hinges on effective coercive collection of due funds and rapid development of internal expertise in project finance engineering.