The Mbangassina municipality is located in the Mbam and Kim Division of Central Cameroon region. The municipality covers about 815km² and comprises 19 villages, with a population of about 68,000 inhabitants.

In 2020, the municipality embarked on a journey to support community livelihoods, increase the sustainability of cocoa production and other agricultural products, while ensuring forests are protected and restored – through the Green Commodity Landscape Program. This program is based on a landscape approach in which industry partners (from cocoa and other sectors), public partners, financiers, CSOs and knowledge partners work together through the development of land-use plans that protect forests, address the needs of local communities, and help make cocoa farming a sustainable livelihood option.

Landscape Profile

Economic profile

Mbangassina is a predominantly agricultural community with cocoa production being their principal occupation accounting for more than 70% of household incomes.

Other crops are subsidiary and mainly subsistence, with some food sales making an important contribution to maintaining household supplies of food and income between cocoa marketing seasons. The food crops (cassava, plantain, cocoyam, yams, maize, pumpkin and fruit trees/vegetables etc.) and the large cocoa farms developed into agroforests provide this population with the essential means of subsistence and a significant part of their annual monetary income (30% to 80% on average).

Cocoa is one of the main cash crops, production averages 5810 tonnes per year with an estimated 9700 cocoa farming households, the cultivation of plantain is another major source of income to farmers, about 2500 tonnes produced annually. Other crops considered as cash crops within the municipality include cassava, with over 72500 bags of flour sold per year and 2500 tonnes of cassava roots produced per year. Yams equally serve as a major revenue crop to households, with production averaging 2000 tonnes per year.

In addition we can note that the flora of Mbangassina is rich in non-wood forest products such as mushrooms, lianas, gnetum, djansang, cola nuts, plants medicinal, wild mangoes, rattan, bamboo, and wild fruits that are source of revenue to many households (Nieboukaho et al., 2016)

Environmental profile

The municipality is located at the frontier of two key ecosystems, a forest ecosystem and a savannah ecosystem, making the region more vulnerable to climate change, which is accelerated by land-use change. It is characterised by degraded forest land largely converted to cocoa agroforestry and extensive savannah land principally used for food crop cultivation and cocoa expansion. While Mbangassina has no community forests on its own, community forests from the neighbouring municipalities of Ngoro and Ntui stretch into Mbangassina covering 2,000 ha.

Deforestation in the municipality is driven by agricultural commodities, small holder food crops cultivation, fuelwood and timber harvesting coupled with urbanisation.

Social profile

The municipality of Mbangassina is made up of about 68,208 inhabitants unequally distributed amongst the different villages, with Voundou as the most populated village with over 12,100 inhabitants. Migration into the municipality has been very high, with over 39.6% increase in population over a 10-year period (2005-2015).

According to a household survey carried out in 2020 (ICRAF, 2020), agriculture is the main source of livelihood for the population of this municipality, it accounts for 80% of food consumption and 70% of household income. Cocoa is the main source of livelihood with 96% of the sampled population indicating that cocoa is one of their main sources of income, 79% depend on food crops, 23% on tree crops (Fruit trees, NTFPs), 11% from small businesses, 5 % generate revenue from livestock and 4% from pension.

Link to the Mbangassina baseline report commissioned by IDH in 2020 for further information.