Contenu du sommaire : Action collective, décentralisation et services de l'eau en Afrique subsaharienne

Good and bad fortune of a community-based management of Daringa's dam, Djougou in Benin This paper suggests analyzing an agro-pastoral dam management recently built in the north-center of Benin. It shows the failure to water livestock that revealing split between the sedentary having the territory rights and the Fulani's breeders who have only secondary rights on the land and on its resources. In spite of a formal community-based inclusive management, they do not succeed to find out themselves in strategic groups to assert their claims.

Reform of water services in African rural areas : stakes and limits of the institutional editing of management. A case study in Senegal The delegation of management of the service of water in rural areas is characterized by a contractual relation between an authority principal and an administrator delegated for the delivery of the service. As the State sets up an action plan to generalize this model, this paper shows that all the editing works, after all, on a difficulty integrating a realistic grammar of the institutional relations : hope that the socio-technical system, organized around the financial "soutenability", is viable without taking into account the weakness of institutions in the Senegalese context.

Community water projects : An arena for expressing political grievances. The case of Kumbo, Cameroon The introduction of democracy in Africa has resulted in the transformation of intercommunity relations. This has thus led to a crisis of modernisation as local political elites try to grapple with the demands of a modern setting while also trying to stick to their essential community identity. Within this context of conflict, community water supplies are serving as devices through which communities express their pessimism towards the state. This paper seeks to examine how community organisation in the North West Cameroon (Kumbo) has influenced the relations between local communities, politics and the influence in the management of local water supplies.

Mininetworks of drinking water : between political stakes and local arrangements. The case of the municipality of Djougou in Benin This paper concerns the managing changes of village's water supply in Benin in the context of the political decentralization. The discussion is about the stakes, arrangements and tenseness of the transformation from a community-based to a delegated management through the trajectory of a village water supply in the municipality of Djougou in the North center of Benin and the evocation of the recent policy orientations of the country.

The Political Economy of the Reform of the Cotton Sector of Western and Central Africa : Towards the Convergence of the Modes of Organization ? The cotton sectors of western and central Africa are the place of important transformations which articulate for the main part, around a guideline : the connection of the cotton producers to the world market is their only way of perennisation. This article tries to show that the analysis of the process of reforms accredits the report of an increasing harmonization of the points of view of the partners in the development. However, behind this liberal consensus which seems to be established, remain profound differences of perception between the actors, on the background of differences on the conception of the value at the origin of the reforms of the sectors.

Financial Reforms and Bank System Profitability in the CEMAC Zone Countries This study analyzes through the Behaviour Performance Structure model, the impact of financial reforms on the profitability of the bank system in the CEMAC Zone Countries. The results show that the risk index and the shares part held by the private sector are significant in the determination of the profitability of banks. Main recommendations are on the improvement of the quality of banks portfolio and the continuing privatization of the banking sector.

Entrepreneurial survival in Africa : the case of guinean companies This paper presents the results of an investigation of approximately six thousand Guinean households' enterprises, from between 2002 and 2003. It shows that, in difficult economic and social situations, in which the state provides less basic social services, the creation of activities remains the only alternative for families to survive. The created companies have a short life because of their low level capital and the confusion that surrounds their management.

Recent developments in the finance and economic growth literature This paper summarizes some recent contributions on the relationship between financial development and economic growth. The theoretical models show that financial development affects growth through risk diversification, intermediation improvement and reduction of information asymmetry. The empirical estimations confirm the overall theoretical results and suggest that economic growth is positively linked to financial development.