The Ateliers de Cergy are supporting the City of Porto-Novo in organizing an intensive session of the West African Urban Planning Workshops, which will take place in Porto-Novo from January 29 to February 10, 2017.

This workshop, in a reduced format (12 days, 12 participants), is part of the "Porto-Novo Green City" project launched in 2015, whose objective is to develop a sustainable territorial development strategy that will: preserve and enhance the natural and cultural heritage of the lagoon area and the old town core; improve living conditions for residents and the city’s resilience to climate change; implement practical planning solutions and simple techniques on the ground, allowing residents to adapt their practices to environmental challenges and benefit from them in the short and medium term;evaluate and capitalize on practices to disseminate, inform, and promote this mode of production and management of a flood-prone natural area;*strengthen the institutional and technical capacities of municipal services.

To prepare this work, the City of Porto-Novo wanted to organize a session of reflection and collective production in Porto-Novo, continuing the numerous urban design workshops that have taken place there with the support of the Ateliers de Cergy and their partners since 2009.

For this February 2017 workshop, the City is primarily calling upon former participants already familiar with the territory of Porto-Novo and the city’s planning challenges. The workshop aims to develop strategic and more operational proposals regarding the urban development planning of Porto-Novo, the location of key metropolitan functions, and their integration across the territory. Participants, already familiar with the city’s fragile geographic and environmental context, will pay particular attention to issues of sustainable development and climate change adaptation, the enhancement of the city’s cultural and historical heritage, and land-use strategies enabling urban densification while protecting vulnerable populations.

Financial and technical project partners: French Global Environment Facility (FFEM), Agence Française de Développement, the Cergy-Pontoise Agglomeration Community, and the Greater Lyon Metropolis, within the framework of decentralized cooperation.

The Ateliers de Cergy provide scientific and technical support for the project. Given the specific nature of this approach, the call for participation is circulated exclusively to former participants of the West African Urban Planning Workshops.