Douala/Cameroon

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Douala/Cameroon

The cooperation agreement with Douala sets out to provide assistance in municipal administration and local and social development policy and to encourage exchanges between schools and between associations.

Douala is the economic capital of Cameroon and its main business center. The town takes its name of the people who founded it, the Doualas. Douala is 250km from the capital, Yaounde and has more than 3 million inhabitants.

Douala is the capital of the Littoral province and the Wouri department, Wouri being the name of the river that had long been the center of activity in the city. It is the biggest port in the country. The Douala Urban Community was founded in 1987 and is headed by a government delegate. It consists of 6 arrondissement communes, one of which is Douala IV with which Strasbourg has developed cooperative ties from 2004 on.

The goals of cooperation

Enhance the expertise of the arrondissement commune of Douala IV in such areas as municipal management and the social and local development policy.

Support the Douala Urban Community to implement an ambitious rainwater drainage project.

Support for social development

The City of Strasbourg and the arrondissement commune of Douala IV have placed social action at the core of their cooperation, in close collaboration with IRCOD (Regional Institute for Development Cooperation), which has a team in the field. This partnership has resulted in the construction and commissioning of an intersectoral municipal social center in the densely populated Mambanda district. This center is a tool to implement a coherent and concerted social action policy in Douala IV. The establishment of the center benefited from energetic and ongoing support from Strasbourg's municipal services (drafting of constitutional texts, job profiles, consultation, leadership, startup, etc.). The Douala Urban Community provided financial support for work on the sewage system and other external developments.

Since 2014, exchanges with the Douala Urban Community have further intensified through close ties with IRCOD and concern the establishment of a new rainwater drainage project in Douala, co-funded by the French Development Agency, in close cooperation with IRCOD. This 3-year project calls on the expertise of the Strasbourg Eurometropolis (Sanitation and Geomatics Departments to obtain greater knowledge of the territory).