Abstract

Demography's role in African countries' national development plans is increasing and so is the need for improved information services on population and demography. A well-equipped documentation centre in Cameroon linked to an institute for demographic research and training could fill this need, especially by collecting documentation and information in French for dissemination to other countries in the region through the population information network POPIN-Africa. This project reorganizes a documentation centre in Yaoundé, Cameroon, to give demography students and professors access to current literature in their field. It will recruit and train personnel; buy the necessary office equipment; set up a classification system; acquire reference books; and produce up-to-date accession lists for the users.

Post-Project Summary

This project allowed IFORD to strengthen its Documentation Centre by hiring an assistant documentalist and a secretary; by upgrading its document collection which grew to 6,127 documents and 1,994 periodicals; by improving the organization of the Centre (re-organization of the files, the establishment of an authoritaty list of corporate authors changes to the classification system, etc.); and by disseminating information through the publication of three issues of the IFORD-BIBLIO-INFO bulletin using POPIN funds. However, certain difficulties related to fluctuations in the exchange rate of the dollar (in decline) prevented the acquisition of most of the technical equipment that had been expected to be purchased in the project (photocopier, microfiche reader, filing cabinets with suspended file holders). Steps have been taken for their possible purchase abroad. The work was pursued in a second stage of the project.

Recipient Institution(s)