by Nsah Mala
In the month of June 2025, Alice Ayong née Mbuh, the Mayor of Belo Council, Boyo Division, Northwest Region of Cameroon, has paid a working visit to Canada with the aim of learning from the Canadian experience in local governance while hunting for investors and partners.
She took part, for the first time, in the African Learning Mission on Tourism and Local Development (MATDEL) Canada from 16 to 20 June, in the city of Gatineau-Ottawa, in the lone Francophone province of Canada: Quebec. Mayor Ayong was received at the Ottawa International Airport by Jean Solaire Kuete, CEO of IOM SARL International.
MATDEL Canada, an annual event, now in its fourth edition, brought together African mayors and local development actors to discuss “tourist accommodation and environmental protection” as the theme for this year. The five-day event consisted of several activities and objectives, including, among others, discovering and learning about Canadian models of tourist accommodation and environmental protection, B2B meetings between local development actors from Africa and Canada, and forging partnerships and decentralised international cooperation.
It was a great opportunity for participants to be exposed to Canadian models of local development and governance. While Mayor Ayong praised the Canadian models, she also made it clear that it is important to design models that fit different contexts such as Cameroon where she comes from.
In her own words, “Canadian models are good and a lot can be copied from them, but each model is adapted to its own people and its own evolution. That notwithstanding, this is a real spur for me to see how we can try to come up with our own local models that will fit our own context.”
As part of the event, Mayor Ayong and other participants visited the Cornwall Community Museum and Archives. For Mayor Ayong, the visit to the museum was an occasion to learn about the history of Canada and Cornwall and to draw inspiration for what can be done back home in her Municipality of Belo where there is no real culture of museums, except for a few private collections here and there.
“I think that visiting the Museum in Cornwall has really inspired me, and I think that back home we don’t really have museums as such in my community; we may have collections here and there,” she said.
“But I have also learned something, that is, archiving, and that the history of Cornwall and the history of Canada can be traced in this museum. So, I am going to go back home and say what is the history of my people and the history of my municipality, and I am going to build it up… I think this is going to help my community and many people will come to really know who we are. That is what mankind is all about, trying to identify who you are,” she added. Meanwhile, Mayor Ayong also used the opportunity of her working visit to Canada to hunt for potential investors and partners for Belo Council. For instance, on the banks of the Outaouais River that separates Ottawa and Gatineau, and Ontario from Quebec, Mayor Ayong had a working meeting with Nicole Fortier Levesque who has 8 years of experience at the head of a Canadian municipality and is the outgoing president of the Association Française des Municipalités de l’Ontario (AFMO). Hopefully, Belo Council will start reaping the fruits of this international working visit to Canada not long from now.
First published in The Ijim Times No. 001 on 30 June 2025
