The Ouagadougou urban incubator, set up by GRET and Humanité et inclusion (HI), and funded by Agence française de développement (AFD), is an innovative system enabling the design and implementation of small-scale developments and urban facilities in collaboration with local populations, civil society organisations, and local artisans and designers.
The objective of the Ouagadougou urban incubator’s initial actions is to enable diverse future users, local artisans and site authorities to work together. A clear goal for a project that will propose and implement facilities and developments meeting the needs and expectations of all involved.
Initially, the objective is to foster project management, initiatives and creativity of inhabitants, users, and civil society organisations in the neighbourhoods targeted. Subsequently, the goal is to facilitate collective social dynamics in neighbourhoods, and to promote interaction between local authorities, citizens, civil society organisations and other stakeholders. Lastly, the initiative must enable the acquisition of knowledge and new learning curves for the various stakeholders involved, and to facilitate ownership of the developments and facilities put in place, and, in doing this, to ensure their sustainability.
Co-design workshops
Since the month of April, four workshops were organised. Together with participants, these workshops made it possible to identify the types of developments and facilities – sustainable, transitory or temporary – responding to their needs and necessary for the facilitation, stimulation and preparation of future uses.
After these workshops, presentations of the work carried out were organised in the neighbourhoods with the populations to share results and present the first actions that could be implemented by the incubator in collaboration with the municipality of Ouagadougou.
The first developments completed
The first actions were implemented in April, immediately after the first workshops. Some of these actions focused on cleaning of sites, prior to the developments they will house. Installation of some pre-fabricated modules with painting and cladding workshops was also completed.
Other more significant and more costly developments and facilities should soon be completed.
