The IMF’s latest assessment of Cameroon sends a subtle but important signal. Despite widening external imbalances and rising fiscal pressures, the country continues to play a stabilising role within the CEMAC monetary union. Beneath that apparent stability, however, structural vulnerabilities are quietly accumulating.
In 2025, Cameroon’s current account deficit widened to 3.9% of GDP, driven partly by declining oil exports. Normally, this would weaken a country’s contribution to regional foreign exchange reserves. Yet Cameroon’s contribution to CEMAC’s pooled international reserves remained largely unchanged because the country offset weaker export inflows by tapping international capital markets through a private placement, raising $750 million in early February.
In macroeconomic terms, Cameroon is replacing a real flow with a financial flow, substituting export earnings with debt. In the short term, this preserves regional reserve levels and supports the CFA franc’s fixed exchange rate regime. In the medium term, it shifts the risk profile from trade volatility to debt vulnerability. Cameroon is stabilising the system, but with borrowed dollars.
A stabilisation model under pressure
For CEMAC, reserve adequacy is existential. The region operates under a fixed exchange rate backed by pooled foreign exchange reserves, and any significant erosion would put pressure on currency credibility. Cameroon, as the largest economy in the bloc, carries disproportionate weight in maintaining that buffer. The IMF implicitly acknowledges this role but also flags rising external commercial borrowing and heightened financing pressures. The strategic question is no longer whether Cameroon stabilises the region — it is whether that model remains sustainable in an environment of higher global interest rates, volatile commodity prices, tight regional liquidity and vulnerable domestic debt markets. If global financial conditions tighten further, Cameroon’s ability to refinance external debt could become more fragile, with consequences that extend well beyond its borders.
The Fund also notes fiscal deterioration in 2025, partly linked to election-related uncertainty. The overall deficit widened, the non-oil primary balance worsened significantly, non-oil revenue underperformed, current spending overshot, and capital expenditure execution lagged. In a country that anchors regional stability, fiscal discipline is not purely a domestic matter — it has systemic implications. Election cycles and fiscal slippages are common in emerging economies, but in a monetary union with limited adjustment tools, fiscal behaviour in the largest member state affects the collective resilience of the union.
On growth, the IMF projects a recovery to 3.3% in 2026 and above 4% from 2028, assuming electricity transmission bottlenecks are resolved. This is revealing. Cameroon’s growth constraint is not primarily one of demand — it is infrastructure. The economy is physically capacity-constrained, and acceleration depends on project completion, execution capacity and investment efficiency. If infrastructure reforms stall, medium-term growth projections could prove optimistic, weakening both fiscal and external sustainability.
Despite stabilisation efforts, Cameroon remains at high risk of debt distress. The combination of external commercial borrowing, weak non-oil revenue mobilisation, arrears risk and market development weaknesses in the regional treasury market creates a layered vulnerability structure. For observers, the picture is nuanced: Cameroon is not in crisis, but its stabilising role in CEMAC is increasingly financed through debt markets rather than export strength.
Cameroon today sits at the centre of a delicate balance. It supports regional reserve stability while facing domestic fiscal and structural constraints. It relies more heavily on external borrowing and bets on energy infrastructure and mining diversification to lift growth. If those drivers materialise, Cameroon strengthens its anchor role. If they underperform, the strain could migrate from national accounts to regional monetary stability. The IMF’s message is double-edged: Cameroon remains the external stabiliser of CEMAC, but the margin for error is narrowing.
Idriss Linge