Land-use planning implementation uncertainty in Bamako District

I recently published a study on urban policy implementation context in Bamako, the capital city of Mali. It was published in January 2020 by African Journal of Land Policy and Geospatial Science.

The goal of this research was to understand the driving forces and agents that prevent the effective application of land-use policies through plan implementation, in the fastest growing city in Africa, Bamako District.

The current results are based on field work done in November and December of  2017. The survey was done at three levels, including interviews with official actors, and questionnaires sent to citizens and the neighborhood leaders and neighborhood development Committees (Comité de Développement de Quartier: CDQ). In total, 746 questionnaires were distributed to citizens, 32 questionnaires were distributed to Neighborhood Development Committees (CDQ), and 11 interviews were conducted with public officials across the 32 Neighborhoods in the six Communes of Bamako District. 

We discovered from the our field work that (1) the main factors of uncertainty in land-use planning in Bamako District include political factors, economic factors and actions of government; the six municipalities (city halls) and their mayors, respectively (2) the uncertain service and (3) the uncertain actor in the plans implementation process in Bamako District. Uncertain factors refer to factors that are very difficult to predict with accuracy during the planning process and that have negative impact on plan effectiveness, namely city master plans and the Bamako’s (six) sector urban land-use plans. For instance, we found that since 2015, Bamako District has not had a valid urban master plan because of political uncertainty. These results are a big concern for sustainable city development.

Our results have several implications including scientific contribution to knowledge of the key factors and actors causing the failure of land-use policies (plans) in Bamako District, and clearly identifying actors who need to be placed in the center of actions and attention in the sustainable management of African cities. This topic has rarely been the subject of study in Africa, unless we are mistaken, thus, the third contribution is to enlighten policy makers at the regional level (African Union) and to guide actions that will help achieve the « Africa we want » in 2063 through the sustainable development of Africans’ cities using global solutions to common land-use planning issues.

This blog is a contribution to the LANDac Online Encounter 2020.