JLE

Environnement, Risques & Santé

MENU

Dakar suburb communities and recurrent flooding: the relevance of social capital and adaptive capacity Volume 15, issue 4, July-August 2016

Figures


  • Figure 1

  • Figure 2

Tables

Authors
Université Versailles-Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)
Observatoire Versailles-Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines
Laboratoire culture-environnement-arctique-représentations-climat (CEARC)
11, boulevard d’Alembert
78280 Guyancourt cedex
France
* Tirés à part

A combination of decisions to displace populations from the city center of Dakar to the periphery, the severe drought in the 1970s that induced a massive rural exodus and an uncontrolled resettlement, and increased rainfall since around the year 2000, has produced an apparently insoluble situation for poor communities that endure floods year after year. Before designing actions to support the communities struggling with these floods, we used an exploratory qualitative survey to collect the data needed to analyze the factors that facilitate or impede their mobilization and their capacity to act autonomously. The relevance of social capital was assessed and confirmed by studying existing intra- and inter-community relations and networks and their influence on the capacity to act and reclaim public space. Categories such as mutual support and informal social control, considered as non-exhaustive dimensions of social capital, together with aspects of governance (trust, civic engagement) and the composition of organized groups were used and correlated to various actions. A framework based on social capital offers insight into community collective agency and the type of interventions that can further its empowerment, especially in the South.