TITLE:
Differentiated Impacts of External Public Financing Sources on Economic Growth in Cameroon: An ARDL Approach
AUTHORS:
Ndjidda Ngoura, Adèle Micheline Ngo Bilong, Simon Pierre Onana, Jean Marie Gankou
KEYWORDS:
ADP, External Public Debt, Economic Growth, ARDL Approach, Cameroon
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Business and Management,
Vol.14 No.1,
December
8,
2025
ABSTRACT: The objective of this article is to analyze the relationship between specific sources of external public financing namely, official development assistance and external public debt and economic growth in Cameroon. Using an Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach applied to annual data from 1980 to 2023, we first established the existence of a long-term relationship between these sources of external financing and economic growth in Cameroon. The findings indicate that, in the long term, external public financing sources, including official development assistance and external public debt, have a significant positive impact on economic growth in the country. In the short term, while the impact also appears positive, it is not statistically significant. These results reflect the cautious debt policy adopted by the Cameroonian government after reaching the completion point, which commits to maintaining the debt ratio (DEBT/GDP) below 45%. This threshold is half of the Community requirement and lower than the debt ratios of many other countries. However, the rapid increase in external public debt in recent years raises concerns, as this trend could potentially harm economic growth if it continues unchecked.