Cameroon: sounding the alarm before the waters rise

In 2024, floods hit Cameroon's Far North with a violence unseen in twenty years: 459,000 people affected, 135,000 displaced. Entire villages were cut off for days, no information, no link to humanitarian teams.

The question that followed was not only how to respond after the disaster. It was: how do we make sure communities are ready before the waters rise?

That is the purpose of the SOLIS bot deployment Solidarités International is launching in the region, as part of a disaster risk reduction project with the local NGO Tammoundé. The pilot is just beginning, impact figures will come, but the system is already in place, six weeks ahead of the rainy season:

• a "Flood preparedness" information center co-designed in workshops with the communities: preparedness checklist, evacuation routes, emergency contacts, in French and in Fulfulde, with voice notes recorded by the local team, because a significant share of residents do not read French,
• broadcast templates pre-approved by WhatsApp as early as April, in a live emergency, the 48 hours approval takes would be too long,
• a network of community focal points: over 2,000 registered members, including trusted relays identified in every target village, equipped with a five-question reporting form,
• an early-warning system that notifies the team the moment consultations spike or several relays report rising water, with systematic human validation before any broadcast goes out.

The bet is simple: a number communities know and trust before the crisis will be ten times more effective during it. In areas where some villages are only reachable in the dry season, this digital link is no gadget, it is the one channel that will stay open when the roads close.