Université de Montréal signed a Memorandum of Understanding with UN Habitat on october 2014 that was approved by Minister of International Relation and Francophonie of Québec (Canada)
UN-Habitat and Université de Montréal : both institutions are committed to work together in order to strengthen capacity of French speaking African countries to face priority challenges related to sustainable cities in the context of Habitat III and beyond in the context of implementation of Agenda 2030 and New urban Agenda.
RESAUD NETWORK (Réseau d’Échanges Stratégiques pour une Afrique Urbaine Durable) is a joint initiative led by the University of Montreal (Canada) and UN-Habitat and supported by Canada and Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie. It has been established in 2014 at School of Urban Planning of University of Montreal (Canada) by urban researchers and expert/practitioners from North and South in the aim to help African cities in their willingness to improve urban governance for safe, secure and inclusive cities. RESAUD works in four French-speaking African countries: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, and Senegal.
Urbanisation presents risks but is also an opportunity for Africa. All stakeholders – professionals, decision-makers, elected officials and citizens – must be accompanied in their willingness to develop their cities, and development should not leave anybody behind. African cities possess the keys and resources to help them build innovate in terms of sustainable solutions: their universities. Universities can become sources for local solutions and support institutions in improving the efficiency of their urban policies.
RESAUD mission : By transforming knowledge into action, RESAUD helps African cities to address three primary challenges: tenure security as the basis for managing equitable cities; public safety as the basis for managing bearable cities; access to essential urban services, and environmental risk management as the basis for managing viable cities.
RESAUD is based on an operational alliance between the universities and cities of French speaking Africa, supported by Université de Montréal & Campus Montréal (Canada) and UN Habitat.
For its first phase RESAUD developed partnership arrangement between four local governments and four universities: Université de Ouagadougou & Ouagadougou, Université de Yaoundé & Yaoundé, Université Félix Houphouët-Boigny & Abidjan, Université Cheikh Anta Diop & Dakar. The Université de Montreal (Faculté de l’Aménagement and École de Criminologie) and Campus Montreal (École Polytechnique) apply the knowledge, tools, experiences and practices developed in Canadian and international context to serve their African partner universities / cities.
In the future RESAUD wants to open further operational alliances city/university in other African countries.
