What we do not yet know, and how it will be resolved

11.1 Labour-market and education data

The national labour statistics used in this paper are recent and of good quality at national and regional level, but they do not describe the local labour market around Kribi, nor the capacity of individual training programmes. The latest census count published for Kribi dates from 2005 [S62], and the port’s growth since 2011 makes it a poor guide to today’s population. Nationally, the fourth general census (RGPH4) closed its field count in October 2026 with about 22.7 million residents, about 24% below the World Bank’s estimate [S19][S14]; until final results are published, national cohorts and the local labour pool remain uncertain, and this paper shows both values for the cohort reaching working age (Chapter 2). Enrolment and graduate numbers by programme are not published systematically for the engineering schools, institutes of technology and vocational centres described in Chapter 3; the latest internationally reported breakdown of tertiary graduates by field dates from 2010, and the latest share of vocational streams in secondary education from 2016 [S16]. Two measures of young people outside work and education diverge widely: the ILO’s harmonised estimate of 23.2% for 2021 [S14] and the national survey’s sustainable-development indicator of 3.6% for the same year [S12], reflecting different definitions that should be reconciled before either is used to set targets.

11.2 Legal and regulatory questions

Three legal questions bear directly on the recommendations. First, article 82 of the 1992 Labour Code prohibits night work by women in industry with limited exceptions [S33]; whether this provision has been amended, how it is applied today to continuous-process plants, and which ministerial order sets the work prohibited to women under article 83 could not be verified for this paper. Second, the route the State chooses under ILO Convention No. 89 matters as much as the Code. Ratification statuses were confirmed in the ILO’s NORMLEX database on 10 October 2026: Convention No. 89 (ratified in 1970) and the Occupational Safety and Health Convention, 1981 (No. 155, ratified on 1 October 2021) are in force for Cameroon; the 1990 Protocol to Convention No. 89, the Night Work Convention, 1990 (No. 171), the Violence and Harassment Convention, 2019 (No. 190) and the Promotional Framework for Occupational Safety and Health Convention, 2006 (No. 187) have not been ratified [S73][S74]. Whether the State intends to ratify the Protocol, or to use the 2031 to 2032 window to denounce Convention No. 89, is not known [S69]. Third, the implementing texts of Ordinance No. 2025/002, in particular how the local-skills and local-hiring programmes required by its article 6 will be assessed and monitored, were not yet available [S36].

11.3 Certification and training capacity

No body testing and certifying welders to ISO 9606-1 on a regular basis in Cameroon was identified for this paper, and the presence of an Authorised Nominated Body of the International Institute of Welding in Cameroon or the CEMAC region was not confirmed [S59][S60]. Similarly, no Cameroonian provider of steelmaking or casting simulator training was identified. These gaps define the scope of the proposed test centre and simulator procurement, and should be confirmed with MINEFOP, the national standards agency and international certification bodies.

11.4 Project-specific figures

The workforce figures for Cameroon Steel’s works are planning values from its public reference configuration [S11]. The family totals for the first phase are planned; the allocation within families (Table 9.1), the times to competence (Figure 5.2), the localisation path by family (Figure 9.3) and the local-sourcing objectives by category (Figure 6.1) are illustrative. They will be replaced by values from detailed engineering, the equipment suppliers’ staffing recommendations and the make-or-buy decisions for maintenance and services. The construction peak is an assumption based on benchmarks and will be revised once contracting packages are defined.

11.5 Summary of evidence gaps

Table 11.1 Evidence gaps, why they matter and how they will be resolved

Source: Cameroon Steel analysis of the evidence used in this paper.

11.6 How this paper will be updated

This is a first edition. Cameroon Steel intends to update it as the evidence gaps above are closed and as the project’s engineering advances, and to publish the workforce indicators listed in Chapter 9 once operations begin. Corrections and additional sources are welcome; they will be acknowledged in later editions. Figures labelled planned, indicative, assumed or illustrative should be read as such; figures labelled sourced can be checked against the sources listed in Annex C.