Un concept de monitoring participatif au service des villes en développement : approche méthodologique et réalisation d'un observatoire urbain

A collaborative monitoring concept for developing cities. Methodological approach and realization of an urban observatory. Cities in developing countries are experiencing a considerable demographic growth. This makes their development difficult to foresee and plan, all the more so since technical and financial means are lacking to provide public management. Furthermore, the political context is affected by power and responsibility imbalances among the different actors. This situation has direct repercussions on the land-use, through classical syndromes of bad development: large informality, precarious settlements, lack of infrastructure, low efficiency of the public investments, environmental degradation, etc. To analyze the processes of management in developing cities, we refer to two complementary models. On the one hand, to urban governance, a reading grid for the transformation of territorial public action. It focuses on the stakeholders and their interrelationships, on the balance of power and responsibilities, and on the capacity of the local entities to manage their decentralized responsibilities. On the other hand, to a systemic analysis, based on a meta-model of the auto-organizing systems, applied to the land-use management. The modeling of the urban management processes shows an important deficiency at the coordination level, between the various actors that intervene in the land-use: the communication platform are missing and no common diagnosis or strategies are guiding their operations. It also shows that the solution does not pass through the imposition of a land-use plan, but through the collective development of a strategic view of the city, made through an intensification of the networking. This research work starts from the potential of the information systems, of the land management techniques, and of the participative methods. It proposes a concept of monitoring for developing cities, based on the integration of two elements: a collaborative urban observatory, and a forum that brings together the urban management stakeholder. Therefore it conceives and connects several methodological modules: a specific GIS, made up from data and indicators for the management of developing cities; a systemic model, to analyze the complementarity among the different indicators; an observatory computerized interface, making easier the access to the information the System for the Monitoring of Urban Functionalities (SMURF); an implementation method for the monitoring system, within the urban processes, in the form of a succession of management workshops, run within a consultation forum; finally, a model of dynamic land management, which integrates the information and the participation for a improvement of the urban governance. The concept is applied to the city of Thies (Senegal), following an iterative approach, alternating the development of the tool with the application and with the validation. Between huge demographic growth and lack of techn