The Caribbean region faces the dual challenge of economic development and resilience to natural disasters. At the heart of these challenges is the question of spatial planning, which must reconcile urban development, major risk management and sustainable development. It must enable territories and inhabitants to prosper while preserving landscapes and ecosystems and minimising the impact of natural disasters aggravated by climate change.

Most Caribbean territories are facing increasing urbanization, a decline in the agricultural sector and mass tourism, which are the foundations of their more or less regulated and controlled spatial organization.
All the territories of the Caribbean basin are confronted with these challenges of land use planning and resilient construction, for which regional cooperation is gradually being established.

In 2017, the city of Pointe-à-Pitre received financial support from the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs (MEAE) for the implementation of the decentralized cooperation project with Tabarre entitled “Support for urban governance and the sustainable management of local public services”. The actions carried out within the framework of this decentralized cooperation include:
– training and capacity building for elected officials and municipal officials;
– the development of partnerships between actors: civil society, institutions, technical and economic actors;
– and the implementation of relevant sectoral actions.

In order to ensure the continuity and deepening of this cooperation, the urban development stakeholders involved in this partnership see an opportunity to extend the exchange network to the city of Saint-Louis in Senegal, Pointe-à-Pitre’s historical partner and confronted with similar urban development issues.

In view of the context of the territories and their desire for cooperation, this project aims to create favourable conditions for the structuring of a network of institutional and private actors between the territories of Guadeloupe (Agglomeration of Cap Excellence), Haiti (Metropolitan Area of Tabarre – Port-au-Prince) and Senegal (City of Saint-Louis) on urban development themes from a sustainable and resilient urban perspective.

The approach and strategy envisaged through this project aims to carry out a study and networking of actors in order to structure an ambitious multi-year cooperation project on the theme of urban development.