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| Cities: management of social and environmental transformations |
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| An action-oriented project for the six-year period 1996-2001, with the goal of encouraging initiatives aimed at improving the quality of life and to promote the exercise of citizenship in an urban environment. |
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The first four years were spent designing and implementing a small number of pilot activities. During the final biennium (2000-2001), a comparative evaluation of these experiments was carried out, and proposals were drawn up to improve policies for cities, mainly in respect of support for local communities in the context of urban management.
This project, anchored in the MOST (Management of Social Transformations) and MAB (Man and the Biosphere) Programmes of UNESCO, was implemented in partnership with local authorities, NGO's and grass-roots organisations.
Since the experimental project relied on action in the field, it sought to associate the social sciences with the natural sciences. The "social science" dimension was centred on combating forms of social exclusion and, in particular, urban violence, drug abuse, delinquency, exploitation of children, discrimination against women and sought to foster various forms of solidarity and citizens' participation in the face of these cases of social dysfunction. The "natural science" approach emphasised the ecological facets, taking the city as an ecosystem. In addition to the social aspects of urban life, it introduced the physical, chemical and biological aspects, for example problems related to water and to the purification of urban waste, the destruction of green spaces and the lack thereof, the deterioration of the built-up environment, the deterioration of coastal regions linked to urban growth, industrial hazards in the urban context and atmospheric pollution.
The relevance of the project is attested to by the following observation: the protection and the functioning of the city require the consumption of "things" which, by the development of forms of representation and of social policies, become goods owned in common, a part of the common heritage. This is the case not only with water, air and soil, but also with health, silence, the architectural context and security. It is the way in which production and the functioning of the city consume, transform and bring about the deterioration of these collectively owned goods that will pattern and create the urban environment.
Project outcomes:
MOST Policy Paper: Fight Urban Poverty: A general framework for action by Denis Merklen, 2001.
MOST Discussion Paper 54: Urban Development Projects: Neighbourhood, State and NGOs. Final Evaluation of the MOST Cities Project Denis Merklen, 2001 (also available in French).
Évaluation finale du projet Villes : « Gestion des transformations sociales et de l’environnement » :
Les projets de développement en milieu urbain. Le quartier, l'État et les ONG. UNESCO. Denis Merklen, CEMS-EHESS, Janvier 2001.
Extrait de l'Évaluation finale du projet Villes : « Gestion des transformations sociales et de l’environnement » UNESCO. Denis Merklen, CEMS-EHESS, Janvier 2001.
Le Projet Jalousie : « développement intégré d’un bidonville haïtien ». Denis Merklen, CEMS-EHESS, Octobre 2000.
Le Projet Développement Social de Quartiers à Yeumbeul et Malika, dans la banlieue de Dakar, Sénégal. Denis Merklen, CEMS-EHESS, Juin 2000.
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Project Co-ordinator:
Geneviève Domenach-Chich |
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| Start Date
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12-08-1996
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| End Date
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12-08-2001
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| Lead Organization / Sector / Office
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MOST Programme and MAB Programme of UNESCO
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