In an exchange with one of the largest supra-regional West African NGOs based in Dakar – ENDA Tiers Monde – the project for the upgrading and integrating the informal neighbourhood Khadim Rassoul in the city centre of Dakar was initiated. The aim is to use participatory methods and vertical compacting based on the Museke methodology to develop the neighbourhood into a modern and ecological African city. This should be done while preserving the busy neighbourhood’s living and working space, thus counteracting the residents’ threat and their jobs being displaced with innovative urban planning concepts.
Since 1995, ENDA TM has held a provisional land title to protect the neighbourhood, which expires in 2020. The land title is normally automatically renewed for another 25 years but could be terminated by the government in 2019.
Participatory urban planning should counter this risk and propose an innovative and sustainable neighbourhood master plan. This master plan and the visualizations of an innovative African neighbourhood will serve as the basis for a broad-based campaign for a participatory urban development process and thus serve to gain the interest of the rest of the population and the decision-makers on the government side. This planning process should also lead to initiating a financing concept for cooperative development and upgrading the district.
