How can the urban transformation of Ouagadougou be supported through 2050 by building on its specificities and local initiatives as a response to vulnerabilities? The workshop proposes to the participants an opportunity to reflect on the development strategy leading up to 2050. It thus aims to develop a vision to support the city's transformation by integrating the 7 secondary centres and the capital's strong demographic growth.

Ouagadougou, like all its metropolitan counterparts, is in metropolitan, is a booming congested capital that is undergoing permanent (re)structuring. However, what distinguishes it most, like some other major African cities, is the frenetic pace of its development.

Its dizzying growth calls for an equally steady rate of production. Urban planning is quickly outdated while the institutional landscape struggles to articulate itself and become integral to form the backbone of these transformations. Consequently, public action is relegated to corrective action, remedial action and a posteriori formalization.

This problematic, deliberately addressed at a relatively distant horizon, makes it possible to move from the current approach of catching up to an early development strategy. The challenge of foresight is crucial: how can the health and food security of 4 to 5 million people in a metropolitan area with multiple vulnerabilities be ensured, especially where the issues of water and resource management are at the top of the agenda?

The city's relationship with its dams and its green belt are undeniable assets for its future development and thus constitute the starting point for the reflection asked of the teams. Another starting point seems to be found at the heart of the multiple urban intensities of this diffuse conurbation. In these interstices, the people of Ouagadougou adapt, work with, bypass, and invent; andthere is a wealth of grassroots ingenuity.