International Ecumenical Community Development Aid in Bad Hands: The Case of the Bu Health Centre Project of the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon

Abstract

The Bu Health Centre Project was initiated by the Presbyterian Church in
Cameroon (PCC) and the Bu people and adequately funded by ‘Bread for
the World’ (BW), a Christian aid organisation. It was a community development initiative aimed at improving the health of the Bu people. But
the foreign ecumenical health aid, as evidenced by the final phase and
attainments of the project, did not result in community development due to
implementation constraints. This paper, based on primary and secondary
data, provides evidence of the misuse of foreign ecumenical community
development aid, showing that recipient churches engulfed by corrupt practices are more likely to improperly administer such funds. The Bu
Health Centre Project in northwest Cameroon is used as a case study for
examining the issue. The paper begins with a conceptualization of international ecumenical aid and community development given their
centrality to the study. This is followed by a theoretical framework embedded in the current aid debate whose insight can shed light on why
foreign aid fails to deliver. The paper goes on to discuss PCC-BW partnership in service provision in Cameroon, and pays attention to PCC’s
presence in Bu. It further lays bare the genesis and execution of the Bu
Health Centre Project, and rounds up with an analytical discourse for
understanding why the project failed. The study sustains the argument that
the failure to transmit the international ecumenical aid set aside for the Bu
Health Centre Project into beneficial outcomes rests on the attitude of the
donor agency, the recipient institution, and the traditional and civil
authorities of the recipient community.

Keywords: Ecumenical Aid, Community Development, Recipient Institution, Health Care, Misappropriation, Presbyterian Church in Cameroon, Bread for the World