A delegation from the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), headed by UN-Habitat Director, Regional Office for Africa, Axumite Gebre-Egziabher, has lauded the developmental progress registered in its MoU signed with the Special Council Support Fund For Mutual Assistance (FEICOM).

This was after a working session between the UN-Habitat delegation and FEICOM officials yesterday January, 23 at FEICOM headquarters in Yaounde. Representing the General Manager of FEICOM was Jean-Aloise Biwole, Director in Charge of Loans and Local Development who said cooperation with UN-Habitat will be reinforced as required.

After discussing for over two hours, Axumite Gebre-Egziabher told the press that FEICOM is one of their partners and they just won the Habitat Scroll of Honour 2012 for the good work they have been doing. From UN-Habitat perspective, the delegation leader appreciated the work carried out by FEICOM since the memorandum was signed in June, 2008 to promote and encourage decentralisation and urban governance, urban management and planning, and capacity building of municipalities in the provision of services and maintenance. "We are very impressed with FEICOM's outcome", Axumite Gebre-Egziabher noted.

At the end of the meeting UN-Habitat agreed to strengthen its commitment and collaboration with FEICOM, expand its activities and that FEICOM will share its experiences with other parties during an AMCHUD African Ministerial Conference that will be held in Chad from 25-28 February, 2014 and also Habitat Three Summit. Axumite Gebre-Egziabher explained that they have organised different global events and they will prefer partners like FEICOM to participate and not only share their experiences but also learn from others so as to improve activities that will enhance sustainable development in Cameroon and in other regions in the African continent.

The Director of Cooperation and Partnership, Communication and Archives, Suzanne Ngane explained that in order to promote decentralisation and urban management and planning in councils, FEICOM was able to prepare a yearly programme which was carried out in three domains; the handing of awards to councils for best practices in urban planning, a programme to improve slumps in some towns in the country as well as building the capacities of councils to maintain projects financed by FEICOM.