.: Video-conference on the Democratic Management of Urban Mobility, Paris-Rabat-Dakar-Yaoundé-Antananarivo-Bogota-Washington, 15 th June 2007
The partnership between the World Bank Institute and the Association of Francophone Universities [Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie – AUF] was established in 2005. In particular it aims to support universities working to promote the development of southern countries.
As part of its work, a series of video-conferences has been organised with the International Conference of French-speaking Higher Education and Management Research Institutions (CIDEGEF), an institutional network and member of the AUF, in order to continue debate in greater depth.
- The first video-conference on ‘Democratic Management of Water’ (25 th April 2007) provided an opportunity to share and examine more closely exchanges between elected representatives, civil society and the university community, at the 7 thVille-Management meeting (VM 7: 20–24 th November 2006) which was held in Douala, Cameroon, on the topic of the democratic management of public goods;
- A second video-conference on ‘Democratic Management of Urban Mobility’, to be held on the 15 th June 2007, will bring together teacher-researchers, pratitioners and experts from Antananarivo, Bogota, Dakar, Paris, Rabat, Washington and Yaoundé.
These are being financed by the World Bank with French funding.
Objectives :
The objectives of the ‘Democratic Management of Urban Mobility’ video-conference are as follows:
- to prepare for the international Ville-Management 8 meetings, to be held in South America in 2008;
- to allow researchers arriving from Africa and South America to access networks of experts;
- to facilitate exchanges between researchers working in different areas and stakeholders in the field.
Central to the video-conference will be in-depth and detailed presentations of experiences, most of which will be new to participating researchers and experts. In order to allow sufficient time for the different exposés and discussion, only 4 or 5 presentations will be given (see programme below).
The experts who will view these presentations will do so primarily to become better informed and to engage with the presenters. They may ask questions if they wish to enquire further into certain aspects of the experiences presented.
Based on the presentations, and if they wish to take part in VM8, we would like each expert to agree to prepare a written account of the discussions which we may then compile into a draft report to be presented at VM8.
A preparatory meeting will be held on the morning or the night before (according to time differences) in order to organise debates. This meeting will provide an opportunity for networking and allow for open discussions which will facilitate collective decision-making with regard to how we might collaborate for VM8.
In order to prepare for the regional seminar on urban mobility in the Mediterranean (to be held in Morocco in December 2007), the World Bank has an additional interest in organising this video-conference: this will enable the bank to invite the Moroccan government to discover the experiences in different countries and to clarify its own expectations in terms of research on urban mobility.
The discussions and conclusions drawn from the video-conference will also provide the means for identifying and examining in greater depth key urban mobility topics and issues. The ensuing expert debate and suggestions will also enrich preparatory seminar work (recommendations guide, survey, etc.).
