About the project
“The moment the communities were excluded, that’s when things began to go wrong.” (Representative of Green Development Advocates, 2025)
Financed by a range of regional and international financiers such as AfDB, EIB and the Cameroonian Government, the Nachtigal Hydro Power Project was launched with the promise of bringing clean, affordable electricity to the country. With regard to concerns of surrounding communities, the implementing Nachtigal Hydro Power Company (NHPC) and financiers have highlighted their commitment to local recruitment and job creation, promoting the project as a driver of livelihood improvement for communities’ residents.
Contrary to these narratives, since construction started in 2018, nearby communities have experienced profound social, environmental, and cultural impacts, with effects that are expected to have severe long-term implications beyond the project’s completion at the end of 2025. Due to the project, the majority of community members find themselves without their main sources of income. Fishermen who have no longer access to the river and fishmongers and restaurateurs who relied on processing and selling fish have largely lost their livelihoods. Farmers who once cultivated fertile land alongside the riverbanks have been partly relocated away from their agricultural land and face environmental challenges such as deforestation and soil infertility. Beyond that, losing access to land, forest and water has disrupted communities’ cultural practices and ways of meaning-making. Importantly, the project has further caused gendered impacts with an increase in teenage pregnancies linked to heightened economic vulnerability and an influx of external workers in the area being only one example.
About the community-led struggle
“When we started, we felt so happy, we felt so proud of the fact that we were able to get three accountability mechanisms on board” (Representative of Green Development Advocates, 2025)
Despite facing powerful financial and political actors, ten affected communities have refused to remain silent. In collaboration with Green Development Advocates (GDA), they have challenged the government, local administrative authorities, NHPC and financiers through writing letters, direct engagement and speaking out in public media campaigns, insisting that their voices be heard.
When these efforts met little response, local communities took a historic step: With the support of GDA and Both Ends, they filed a formal complaint to the Independent Accountability Mechanisms Network (CAO) leading to the initiation of a Dispute Resolution Process with CAO, the Accountability Mechanism (AM) of the World Bank, and Independent Resource Mechanisms (IRM) of the AfDB. As this process was the first of its kind to bring three parties on board at the same time, this represented a clear success for communities and NGOs. In May 2024, the parties signed a Dispute Resolution Agreement committing them to restore livelihoods, support vulnerable groups, and provide collective benefits like education, training, and jobs for local youth.
Yet, the communities’ struggle for justice and accountability continues. As commitments have only been partly met so far, communities and their supporting NGOs are closely monitoring the agreement’s implementation, pushing for timely, adequate and full compensation for lost livelihoods, land, and cultural sites. Even if far from completed, their ongoing struggle sends a powerful message: united in their goal and supported by like-minded partners, through taking legal action, riverside communities affected by the large-scale hydropower project have managed to get powerful institutions to listen to them.
Further resources
- Green Development Advocates website and Facebook page
- Short documentary on gendered impacts “Batchenga, les pleurs des femmes face au barrage” (Green Development Advocates – February 2024)
- Cameroon inaugurates controversial dam despite local dissent (Mongabay, October 2025)
- “Largest of its kind” dam in Cameroon faces backlash from unimpressed fishmongers (Mongabay, October 2022)
- Inspection Panel: Nachtigal Hydropower Project and Hydropower Development on the Sanaga River Technical Assistance Project
- CAO: Nachtigal Hydropower Co-01
- Case overview “Nachtigal hydropower plant” (Bank Track – June 2022)