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Summary
The Urban Management and Inhabitants' Participation Project run in Yeumbel, in Dakar's suburb, Senegal, constitutes along with the projects in Port-au-Prince, Haiti and in Rio, Brazil, one of the pilot experiences of the UNESCO's program called 'Cities, Management of Urban Transformations and of Their Environments'. This program aims to improve environment and urban population's quality of life, but, most of all, it aims to improve support to participated urban management and reinforcement of local participants, whether popular organizations or local government representatives.
Since 1992, Senegal entered a decentralization process which aimed to provide municipalities with a 'closer to people' and more efficient territory management. As far as it goes, it hasn't proved itself efficient : financial, technical and human municipality means seem insignificant compared to the needs (infrastructures, etc) created by a galloping and uncontrolled urbanization.
Using a 'research-action' method, this case study enlightens central issues on development such as inhabitants participation : 'What does popular participation actually mean ? Who participates and how ? What are the impacts of participated urban management on popular urban organization ? What issues does environmental popular management carry out ?'. These are the questions this case study tries to answer through the analysis of Yeumbel's experience.
The first part of this report presents the first phase of the 'Local Initiatives Support Program' which started in Yeumbeul in 1995 and ended in late 1997. This study describes the context in which this program was set up, the content and results of this program's first phase, and concludes on the limits of the program's impacts :
'Due to the program's scale of action and to the few means available, as well as difficulties encountered in gathering information in sub-areas, the written works only refer to the most solvent beneficiaries or the 'less poor' who can potentially bring a financial contribution, even if small (200 CFA). At this point, insisting on the fact that the under-priviledged populations must be properly taken into account becomes one of the second phase's issues.'
The second part of this report reflects a transversal analysis of urban popular management and approaches the three following questions :
1 - The different facets of inhabitants' participation : analysis of popular participation with an emphasis on its meaning, its definition, its concrete applications and implications in the case of a development project.
2 - The impacts and results of the under-priviledged areas' support program : assessment in economical and social terms of the program's impacts on Yeumbeul's inhabitants' quality of life and social organization.
3 - Popular management or shared management : what is the most efficient way to support local initiatives ? This last point brings some questionings and leads of action concerning popular urban management. The author insists here on how important is partnership between all city participants in order to ensure a viable process of decentralization in Senegal.
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