Yaound Urban Council

The last chapter of this study will swing by the major findings on the current most salient needs of Yaound© slum dwellers that the Yaound© Urban Council has to deal with. The summary will also display the missions that local governments should undertake in slum upgrading and the organizational layout adopted. Then the outputs such as actions and projects of this local institution will be reviewed. The findings related to issues and challenges faced by this local council will conclude the summary of findings.

Following this summary and depending on the factors identified as challenges for the Yaound© Urban Council, some recommendations will be made here in order to enhance the role this local institution in the field of slum upgrading. 5.1.

Summary of findings

In order to investigate the role of the Yaound© Urban Council in slum upgrading within its territory, it was important to conduct a prior assessment of the current situation of informal settlements of the city of Yaound©.

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This assessment contributed to give a picture of the current context of slums that the YUC is supposed to deal with. So according to the results of field research and questionnaire administration in 3 neighborhoods,It has been revealed that the main needs of Yaound© slum dwellers encompass the provision of urban basic services, improvement of housing conditions and land tenure security. In fact, the investigated neighborhood B has a severe deficit in basic urban infrastructure with only 21% of households are connected to the piped water network. Concerning the neighborhood A, investigation carried out on the field reveals that about 23.

8% of households have land titles. Plus, 80% of dwellings of the neighborhood C are essentially constructed with non-definitive materials. At the same time, the use of traditional latrines accounts for nearly 85% of sanitation practices in the neighborhood B. Improved systems like septic tanks, expensive and not affordable for the entire population, are used by less than 15% of the inhabitants of the study area.

So as to address these needs expressed by the slum dwellers of Yaound© city, the Yaound© Urban Council has been entrusted with a large array of missions for slum improvement. These missions are to be carried out within a specific organizational framework whereby the Urban Development Cell plays a key role. Thanks to this service, the Yaound© Urban Council has conducted both strategic and operational actions aiming at slum upgrading in the city of Yaound©. Yet, the concrete actions of YUC are marked by a constant preoccupation to address issues of public infrastructure more than issues related to land tenure and housing.

This inability to consider land tenure and housing in its programs stresses that the Yaound© Urban Council might undergo certain issues and challenges.The results drawn from in-depth interviews combined with literature exploration expose that out of the 8 factors and issues listed so far, there are 5 that seem very determinant in the role of the Yaound© Urban Council in slum upgrading. They are the following:-

• High degree of central government control
• Coordination challenges
• Ineffective planning
• Funding challenges
• Community participation

Given their relevance, these factors will guide the recommendations that will follow and which are mostly institutional, financial and social.

Recommendations for the enhancement of the role of Yaound© Urban Council in slum upgrading

Slum upgrading approaches might differ from city to city but it deals with the main deficiencies determined in the slum definition of the UN-Habitat.

Therefore, slum upgrading consists at a package that improves the basic services up to a satisfactory standard. Further actions include legalization and regularization of property rights or also called providing security of tenure. Security of tenure is considered to be one of the essential actions of upgrading since it opens up possibilities of raising credit for livelihood related activities (UN-HABITAT, 2003b, p. VI). In the case of the Yaound© Urban Council, the recommendations will be of institutional, financial and social order.

Recommendations for the institutional framework

To enable the local governments to successfully undertake its role, the central government should commit to effectively decentralize service delivery, to adequately empower local authorities to generate enough revenue and implement their plans, to enable them to adequately improve their human resource capacity, establish effective planning, and improve urban governance, coordination and collaboration with other development (Abdul-Wahid, 2013).

If the role of the Yaound© Urban Council is to be enhanced, some arrangements should be made within the institutional framework of slum upgrading. the institutional component is of utmost importance as it brings together all actors and agencies of the municipality by facilitating the communication and coordination between them. It is also intended to involve all other actors from the private and public sectors that can have a stake or cooperate in reaching the objectives (Arcila, 2008).