ENDA Tiers Monde

December 2006

Created in 1983 to promote innovation in sustainable development, ENDA’s RUP programme on participatory urban development targets better village and city management in order to improve the conditions of deprived and vulnerable populations. Following the Millenium Development Goals, aimed at reducing poverty by half by 2015 and ensuring that the most deprived benefit from fundamental rights (such as education for all and access to basic infrastructures such as drinkable water and adequate sanitation), RUP supports activities to identify alternative development models in the fields of poverty, disaster risk reduction and governance that strengthen the dialogue between civil society and local and governmental authorities. RUP targets three fields in particular:

  • urban development and human settlement
  • participatory processes at local, national, regional and international levels
  • good city governance

Work Axes

RUP strives to support innovation in how service needs are being met in “peri-urban” areas, focusing on both methodology and technical tools. RUP’s work programme includes activities in five main areas:

  • Sanitation and research in urban agriculture
  • Disaster risk prevention and management
  • Promotion of political vision among community
    • leaders through dialogue between civil society and local authorities
  • Good governance and decentralisation
  • Networks for brainstorming and knowledge sharing among NGOs, community groups, and key decision-makers.

RUP supports programme activities both nationally in Senegal, such as the PADE (Urban Environment Sustainable Improvement Process) Programme, and regionally, in Burkina Faso and Cameroon in current programme initiatives.

Networking and partnerships

In addition to participating in the ProVention-supported AURAN initiative, RUP also serves as a focal point for French-speaking African countries in various networks including ”Réseau de la Société Civile sur l’Eau en Afrique” (ANEW), “Réseau Habitat et Environnement Durable” (HSEN), “Réseau sur les évictions forcées” AGFE), and “Observatoires de développement local” (OVAF).

Building on the partnership with ProVention in the AURAN initiative, ENDA has also started to develop a new programme to mainstream local disaster risk prevention practices and approaches into humanitarian and development agendas in Africa. This programme has the following objectives:

  • To develop awareness-raising activities on disaster risk reduction and prevention among communities and decision- makers at all levels of society
  • To promote cohesion among the different disaster risk reduction actors such as NGOs, community organisations, local researchers, and the media
  • To create an electronic forum (“red-risques”) and website for knowledge sharing
  • To identify national and regional focal points and support lobbying of disaster risk prevention as a national priority.
  • To strengthen capacities for information / awareness-raising and promote community networks of “animators” for disaster risk prevention.

RUP project activities are initiated as the result of social requests, expressed either by communities or local authorities or both. All the actions taken by RUP are oriented towards a common objective: implementing innovative processes for more concerted and effective city management. Further by using entry points, RUP seeks to ensure that these activities are linked with one another.

More information on ENDA RUP’s activities can be found at http://rup.enda.sn/index_ang.html.