Private sector : ethnicity, individual initiative, and economic growth in an African plural society : the Bamileke of Cameroon

Reasons for their success are analyzed in this study of traditional Bamileke culture and its adaptation to contemporary economic conditions. Unlike most other African ethnic groups, traditional Bamileke society provided avenues of upward mobility to everyone, with improvement of status through hard work and individual initiative. Emphasis was and is on competition in work, effort, savings, and economic improvement, and on frugality rather than emulative consumption. Individuals are expected to make their own way in the world while retaining a strong ethnic identity and contributing to the group. Traditional Bamileke institutions have been highly adaptive to modern economic functions. The Mandjong, for example, a traditional title society, plays an important role in generating capital through a savings and loan system. Women have always been important economic producers, and modern-day women's societies, deriving from earlier associations of the best women cultivators, strongly influence economic development and capital accumulation. The Bamileke spirit of enterprise has also been influenced by land pressures and inheritance patterns. The high population density of the Western Province of Cameroon - the traditional Bamileke home - has led young people to push out into urban areas, where they have found economic success, albeit not without support from others in their group. Similarly, the patrilineal system of inheritance - another divergence from the African tradition - allows inheritances to be used for economic gain, rather than shared with poorer family members. The Bamileke experience demonstrates that group solidarity does not necessarily stifle individual initiative and private enterprise, but can be a positive force in economic development. While the Bamileke success has developed in a policy environment which is non-ideological and pragmatic, with little government intervention, not all ethnic groups have responded to the same stimuli. In a plural society, ethnicity is a vital social issue and must be considered in any strategies of public or private sector development.