natural Hazards and Climate Change risks - GFDRR

activities and key projects results in higher density and more complex government structure,
with new ad-hoc agencies carrying out the missions the ministries are expected to take.
23. The Dakar Metropolitan Area is characterized by a lack of dialogue between the
administration services, the administration and local authorities, and between the local
authorities. The populations, the civil society, and the private sector are only weakly involved
in urban management.
24. Dakar has been a hub of cultural and political leadership and the destination of large
rural-urban migrations since the 1960s. Recent satellite imagery reveals contiguous
expansion of urban built-up areas over the decades, with a large proportion of the urban
growth occurring in the peri-urban areas (outer suburbs) of the city center. As the Dakar
Metropolitan Area experiences rapid urban expansion, it faces increased vulnerability to
natural hazards and climate change risks.
25. Overlaid on top of this confluence of political and demographic factors, the natural
hazard risks faced by the Dakar Metropolitan Area make for a truly complex picture in terms
of ensuring safe livelihoods and an enabling environment for economic productivity. In order
to meet those challenges and to manage rapid urbanization in the areas likely to be hit by
natural hazards or undergo climate change impacts, the knowledge and response capacity of
the local authorities need to be significantly improved.
26. The World Bank’s Spatial and Local Development Team (FEU, SDN) and the World
Bank-housed Global Facility for Disaster Response and Recovery (GFDRR), in collaboration
with colleagues from the World Bank Senegal Country Office, have launched an innovative
pilot study. The main objectives of this study are two pronged:
27. First, it develops a new generic methodology combining spatial and institutional
analyses at reasonable costs, which would serve a standard assessment template ready to
replicate to other cities and other countries. This will benefit global disaster management
practitioners and communities.
28. Second, it provides action plans for Dakar, Senegal to ramp up disaster management
practices. We aim at providing an overarching strategic framework in bottom-up and
sensitization perspectives, rather than a list of extensive top-down directions and micromanagement
recommendations. We believe the latter is counter-productive, unsustainable,
and inconsistent with our guiding principle: informing, motivating, and involving people in
all aspects of disaster risk reduction in their own local communities. This element will benefit
directly local communities in the Dakar Metropolitan Area as well as Senegal governments in
general.
29. In this regard, this study (i) develops state-of-the-art spatial analysis tools to spatially
evaluate natural hazard and climate change risks, and (ii) addresses the critical knowledge
and capacity gaps of local governments in dealing with rapid peri-urban expansion into areas
that may face vulnerability to natural hazards, including those risks associated with climate
variability. Three pillars of activities are being implemented sequentially.
Activity 1: Spatial Analysis of Natural Hazard and Climate Change Risks and Hotspot
Characterization in Peri-Urban Expansion Areas of Dakar, Senegal
30. Activity 1 develops a methodology for the generation of hazard and vulnerability
maps for the Dakar Metropolitan Area. Three types of hazards are selected for detailed spatial
analysis: Flooding (inland flooding of depressions), Coastal Erosion, and Sea Level Rise. The
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