Additional Context: This information was collected as part of The Aid Report’s original reporting, “In Cameroon, aid cuts deepen hardship as armed groups seek new recruits.” This feature story examines how Cameroonian families have lost food assistance, small businesses have lost customers, and residents say economic opportunities are disappearing in communities already strained by a decade of conflict.

The story follows Lum Nicole, a beneficiary of the Anglophone Crisis Emergency Response program, or ACER, a $10 million USAID-funded initiative that provided food assistance and livelihood support to people displaced by Cameroon's decade-long separatist conflict. The program was terminated in March 2025 as the Trump administration moved to dismantle USAID and cancel thousands of foreign assistance programs. At the time of the termination, Nicole and other business trainees were only weeks away from receiving the startup capital they had been promised, leaving their plans to launch small businesses in limbo. Although they ultimately received the final payment, the interruption forced many to abandon or delay their plans and seek other means of earning a living.

Source: Devex