12 volunteer professionals from Mayotte and around the world worked collectively to propose strategies at different scales for the territory facing challenges of population growth and effects of climate change. They come from Argentina, Haiti, Cameroon, Brazil, Italy, Spain, Reunion and Mayotte. They mobilized their various expertise in planning, landscape, economy, citizen participation or art history to answer these complex questions.


After their welcome on the island on Saturday January 27, Sunday and Monday were devoted to exploring the territory and meeting with the actors who develop and study it.

Sunday was dedicated to the landscape and the territory in these large dimensions, discovering areas still preserved from urbanization, but which must experience significant upheavals according to the Regional Development Plan. The Centre-West of the island would contribute to rebalancing the island: in Combani and Coconi, there shall be departmental archives, the regional research center and of scientific documentation, the Administrative City of the Department and Agropolis, a center for research and agricultural production, etc.

The visits continued in the south of the island, an area with high tourist potential with its many idyllic beaches, but also vulnerable areas affected by erosion, with particularly dramatic examples in Bouéni.

The following day focused on the issue of housing: it was an opportunity for a walk in Mamoudzou to discover the first urban renovation operation on the island, to visit a housing operation delivered recently, to meet the actors of the Port of the archipelago to understand their problems. Then a long field visit to the district of Majicavo-Koropa in Koungou, made us discover the important informal district with multiple challenges, linked to land management insalubrity, risks, food security and the economy in particular…

The next day, Catherine Paquette, Planning and Urban Planning researcher at the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD) once again addressed the crucial questions behind these themes.

All the visits were accompanied by the comments of many experts whom we would like to thank warmly, from the institutions and actors of the territory: the Departmental Council, the Public Land and Development Establishment of Mayotte (EPFAM), the Société Immobilière de Mayotte (SIM), the city of Koungou, the city of Bouéni, the Bureau of Geological and Mining Research (BRGM), Mayotte Nature Environnement, the Mahoran Federation of Environmental Associations (FMAE), REAM and Arch'Adapt...

The Mayotte International Urban Planning Workshop is organized at the request of the Departmental Council of Mayotte with the support from the Agence Française de Développement. Find all the productions of the workshop in the session book, available online - in French.