UN Habitat: Anaclaudia Rossbach sheds light on her Visit to Cameroon

Question:
After your meeting with the Minister of State, Secretary General of the Presidency. What can we take home from the meeting?

Answer:

We discussed the challenges of urbanization in Cameroon, as in Africa, more and more people are coming to cities in large numbers. So we talked about the importance of preparing cities to receive citizens through proper planning, through housing policies, and by promoting access to services and basic needs for the people already living in cities.

We said this is a two-sided issue. On one side, we have the challenge, the needs are high, it’s expensive and complex to work in cities, to work on housing. Access to adequate housing is difficult. On the other hand, housing can be used as a very strong economic stimulus because housing is labor-intensive, it has a very large value chain and is an industry in itself.

And, we spoke about the potential that Cameroon has in terms of locally produced building materials, the traditional knowledge that you have, and also the technology we just launched before — the action plan for smart cities in Cameroon. For now, we can use the technology to get more information about urbanization, about the needs and demands of people, and create shortcuts.

We also spoke about the relevance of the UN, the UN system as a whole, and UN-Habitat working here in Cameroon to bring expertise and know-how from other parts of the world to support in addressing the challenges here.

So we spoke about the upcoming General Assembly where we hope these issues will be discussed. We are going to work with Member States in events related to housing to build resilient communities. We spoke about the international processes that UN-Habitat has been participating in strongly and the role it plays. For example, localizing the SDGs, and the support that we have been receiving from Cameroon in doing the work here, and that support for our global mandate.

Question:

You just launched the National Action Plan for Smart Cities. What will be the contribution of UN-Habitat?

Answer

We have developed an international toolbox to support Member States and cities to promote people-centered smart cities. So, we used part of this expertise and know-how to support this Cameroon-led process, led by the Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Minister Célestine Ketcha Courtes, and the Minister of Telecommunications, to offer guidance to localities here in Cameroon and to stakeholders on how to better use technologies, digital transformation, and AI to support development.

Here we are talking about shortcutting processes, we are talking about data, we are talking about urban mobility, energy, access to basic services, and of course looking at informal settlements and looking at housing.

Questions
Can you shed more light on the launch today?

Answer
Of course, this is a Great initiative led by Minister Courtes. We launched it on Tuesday, September 8, 2026.
World Habitat Day is starting, it’s actually a week-long event that will start here very soon in Maroua, and this is part of a global celebration. The theme was: Adequate Housing.

So, we hope that during this week, we will be able to take stock of the housing situation, considering that the Government, under the leadership of President Paul Biya and the Minister, launched this housing program of Two Hundred Thousand Units.

I think this will be a moment for us to look ahead and see what is the next stage of our cooperation. I really would like to express my gratitude to the people of Cameroon for receiving me and for the collaboration with UN-Habitat, and of course to His Excellency, President Paul Biya, for the trust he has put in us and the amazing hospitality in receiving me in this country, in this nation. This is my first mission, my first visit ever to Cameroon.