Cameroon Has the Power. It Cannot Deliver It

The dams Cameroon dreamed of for fifty years are built and running. What blocks their megawatts is everything downstream: wires, transformers, unpaid bills, and the current that leaks away before it arrives.

On the morning of 29 March 2025, half of Douala went quiet. Maintenance work had taken down the main transmission line into Cameroon’s economic capital. From six in the morning until six at night, nothing for industrial zones, food factories, a hospital… Upstream, all was well. The dams held…