Draft 15.3.03.2013 – trond.vedeld@nibr.no; +47 901 37743
Multi-level governance and floods in urban West Africa
The case of Saint-Louis, Senegal
Trond Vedeld, Ndeye Mareme Ndour, Adrien Coly, Siri Hellevik1
Abstract
Key words: multi-level governance, urban floods, community, Senegal
It is widely acknowledged that the response and preparedness to the impacts of climate
extremes, such as urban floods, raise complex development issues that are best addressed
at the local level with substantive community involvement. It is also generally accepted that
there are many institutional constraints that work against effective community level
participation and communities taking a lead role in addressing climate resilience. This paper
utilizes a multi-level governance approach to analyse local experiences with flood risk
management in the city of Saint Louis, Senegal. The research finds that while the
community-based organisations established within the city have strong networks and
capacity to demand change by the city government, limitations in higher-level governance
undermine the opportunities for local groups to become really effective partners with the
municipality and the state in co-producing services required to enhance resilience in local
neighbourhoods, and more so, to bring local actions to scale beyond the jurisdiction of the
community groups. The research emphasizes that city and sub-city level actors and
processes require firm support from higher levels of government, including also from
international agencies, for this to happen. This encourages us to extend governance and
institutional analysis to include the broader political economy and geo-physical region within
which the metropolitan society is situated.
1
Université Gaston Berger en St. Louis, Senegal and Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research. The
research is an integrated product of the EU project CLUVA (www.cluva.eu ). An early version of the paper was
presented to the Annual Conference of the Norwegian Development Research Association; Development for a
Finite Planet, 26-27th Nov., 2012.