The outgoing Coordinator of the German Cooperation’s Technical Support Programme to the Pan-African Decentralisation Process, CADDEL, has been raised to Knighthood.

The President of the Republic of Cameroon, Paul Biya, has raised Cameroonian-born François Menguele to the rank of Knight of the Cameroon Order of Valour for his contribution to ensuring Cameroon’s leadership in invigorating the process of decentralisation in Africa.

The distinction is also for the support provided to Cameroon while he served in various functions within the Presidium of the African Conference for Decentralisation and Local Development (CADDEL).

The distinction was solemnly pinned on François Menguele’s chest on Friday, January 23, 2015, in Yaounde by the Minister of Territorial Administration and Decentralisation, René Emmanuel Sadi, during the presentation of New Year Wishes by staff of the ministry. François Menguele was hailed for enabling Cameroon to participate in various organs of CADDEL with dexterity.

With Cameroon’s active commitment, CADDEL’s alignment to the African Union (AU) has been effective since January 2015. Furthermore, CADDEL has been twinned with two other Ministerial Conferences of the AU to form the Specialised Technical Committee on Public Service, Urban Development, Local Governance and Decentralisation. The said Specialised Committee thus becomes the third decision-making organ of the AU after the Assembly of Heads of State and the Executive Council.

François Menguele is hailed for boosting the pace of decentralisation in African countries, enabling the latter, amongst which is Cameroon, to translate into practice most reforms announced at the beginning of the 1990s. Cameroon, for example, has sailed through the decentralisation process with commendable results. Besides institutional reforms, the complete devolution of powers to councils has been announced for this year.

To facilitate such achievements, François Menguele played key roles behind the scenes as Coordinator of the German Cooperation (GIZ) Support Programme to CADDEL whose secretariat is based in Cameroon. His know-how therefore could not escape the attention of the Head of State who conferred the distinction before the Urban Engineer left Cameroon after a five-year term, for GIZ’s Headquarters in Eschborn, Germany.