This report card is the third in a series that started in 2009 as part of the programme Making the Forest Sector Transparent, funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID), implemented in seven countries (Cameroon, Ecuador, Ghana, Guatemala, Liberia, Peru, DRC), and coordinated by Global Witness. As for the previous report cards, the methodology focused on data collection and analysis.
Data collection took two months. It was mainly desk-based work through extensive searches on the Internet, review of recent documents and telephone conversations with some key informers (for example, local NGOs and community leaders). Desk work was complemented by information requests to public authorities, as well as individual interviews with stakeholders who are directly affected by issues that require clarification from official sources.
Due to the experience of collecting information over the previous years, changes within each indicator could be highlighted. The main difficulty was that most official websites visited had not been updated, hence the need to do some cross-checking to find the required information. At the same time, this is an indicator of a lack of effective transparency among relevant institutions. Data analysis consisted in highlighting the main research results, including those with a major impact on transparency in the context of Cameroon's forest sector.