147 New Strategies for Urbanisation in

Boubakar Messaoud

The general trend of urbanisation latio'n increase at the rate of 14 percent a The operation that the SOCOGIM carried observable in all of the countries of the yea! Moreover, and this point is very out in made it possible to test the Sahel leads one to note a constant and important, villages are also increasing by validity of this new approach with respect glaring characteristic a worsening of the 14 percent a year In , the to materials and techniques living conditions of the majority of the shanty-town dwellers represent 40 percent The national commission responsible for populations. The shanty-town develop­ of the population. Their numbers are en vi IOn mental questions in 1978 concluded ments in new capitals such as Nouakchott, constantly rising as they spontaneously that a radical re-orientation of objectives the slumification of ancient centers such as create residential areas which are called in the construction field was necessary. As the districts of Medina in Rosso or of kebba here, with reference to the first a result of its wo~k, the Military Com­ Gatega in Kaedi, the rural exodus and, evictions, when whole districts were eva­ mittee of National Salvation decided in paradoxically, the densification occurring cuated flam the city in trucks, like so much October 1979, on massive promotion of in some villages constitute a set of rubbish. local materials New operations were phenomena common to the whole Third The housing policy followed before 1974 launched: the regional hospital of Kaedi, World, which includes four-fifths of the was not concerned with solving this fun­ built of adobe, and a program for l15 world population. Still, this transformation damental problem Priority was given to public housing units made of plaster exhibits some very specific characteristics the urban habitat, rather than to the rural started up in Nouakchott, using local in Mauritania about which one needs more habitat, and to upper-class residential gypsum The ministerial department in knowledge in order to attempt to formu­ housing rather than to that for the working charge of the habitat re-oriented its stra­ late a strategy for development of housing classes Then in 1974 the government tegy in the field of the rural habitat in 1980 which will really become self-reliant in created the SOCOGIM and gave it the and launched a vast project of research and socio-economic terms. . task of finding solutions to the problem of experimentation, based on self-help con­ The population explosion in itself is one of public housing The SOCOGIM stIUction with local materials, in 13 agri­ the underlying causes fOl the exodus of a approached this task strictly flom the point cultural villages and in sevelal fishermen's surplus population The population has of view of an analysis of the urban situa­ villages. Adoption of the Fourth Plan for doubled over a 30-year period without tion; the only activities carried out since Economic and Social Development in 1981 agricultural capacity having risen in pro­ then have applied only to Nouakchott and gave definitive consecration to the in­ portion Drought, arriving to complicate Rosso At the same time, and amidst total stallation of a policy for the habitat as part the situation, annihilated several indifference on the pal t of the departments of the framework for endogenous deve­ successive harvests and, of course, con­ lesponsible for housing, regional deve­ lopment based on the optimum use of local tributed to speeding up and dramatizing lopment around the Gorgol river, a tribu­ lesources the phenomenon. tary of the river, required the I shall briefly mention a few projects which resettlement and rehousing of more than The massive settlement of the nomads are modest, but which have attracted great constitutes the most striking element in the 30,000 people! interest and whose execution was made changes in human establishments The Until I ecently, public construction em­ possible by the technical or financial aid of percentage of nomads and of sedentary ployed only imported techniques and the ADAUA, the Saudi Development people has been reversed over a 20-year materials This choice, which revealed a Fund, UNICEF, the PNUD, and the period vision of development copied on the United Nations Center for Human Western model, brought a pseudo­ Settlements 1960 75% nomads development in Mauritania making us 25% settled The working-class housing proiect in Rosso dependant on the outside world, and 1980: 25% nomads is aimed at doing away with a shanty-town 75% settled prevented us from solving the pIOblems we of more than 10,000 people. The builders faced Still, since 1977 a certain awareness use clay from the river, cold-stabilized with This trend is being accentuated, and in the of the structUi allimits of the traditional lime, which is produced locally by heating year 2000 there will very probably be only mechanisms has led national officials to shells. The fuel used is rice balls Today, 12 percent nomads. contemplate new approaches based on the nearly 500 families have been able to Settlement brought the sudden growth of use of local resources in the environment: finance their homes themselves thanks to all of the cities in Mauritania until 1975. • human resources, on one hand, through the techniques developed in this project Since then all the cities, with the exception self-help construction; The Kaedi Hospital is completely built of of the capital, have seen their population • material resources, on the other hand, clay fired with rice balls. This system figures stabilize or decline. Only through the use of local materials, re­ constitutes a very economical integlation NouakchtJtt is still experiencing a popu- newable energy sources, and appropriate of agriculture and the craft system in techniques const! uction New Strategies for v, banisation in Mauritania 148

The project for constlllction of 115 plaster hal/sing units, in Nouakchott, uses the gypsum from the nearby quarries The wood shavings recovered from the city's woodworking facilities are the fuel used for the dehydration of the gypsum, which yields the plaster Aware of the limitations of this fuel, the project for experimentation with renew­ able energies has developed an initial unit for artisanal production of plaster by de­ hydration of gypsum using solar energy. Two great resources of MaUl itania, sand and sun, combine here to produce a good building material at' a low cost.

SlIeet in the ~hanty-town of Rosso, Maw itania Photo C Little/Agan Khan AlI'mds

Improved housing of masonry construction in the shanty-town of Rosso, Mauritania Photo C Little/ Aga Khan A wm ds