Adaptive management as an approach to improve the performance of rural development projects in Cameroon

The main objective of this article is to respond to the need for improvement of development projects performance, from there, contributing to the effectiveness of public development aid. This question is at the heart of the Cameroon Government concerns which faces the permanent challenge of improving the living conditions of its rural population. The study approach is explanatory focuses on identifying the causes of the problem in order to make proposals that take into account the uncertainty encountered by most development projects. Following the review of the literature, the state of the art and the diagnosis, the analysis of the data highlights the need to face risks in the management of development projects. The emphasis is therefore placed on adaptive management which offers a managerial framework whose performance depends on the ability of the project team to deal with risks and uncertainties throughout the project life cycle. Far from ignoring the technical aspects and the merits of the traditional standard approaches such as the Logical Framework used in most development projects in Cameroon, adaptive management is a managerial approach which adapts to complex projects such as rural development projects with an emphasis on learning and structured decision-making to solve problems in contexts of permanent uncertainty.