Contenu du sommaire

Development problems in the Lobi country (Ivory Coast). Since 1970, the effort to reduce regional disparities in development has started to get results in parts of the country. It is not yet the case in the North-East savannah, especially in the Lobi region. The present study is based on the hypothesis that the most active factors of delay are socio-cultural and ideological ones. It also admits that the actual blockage of the region as it is noticed in the diagnostic study, is the result of an anachronistic (an out of date) functioning of the mechanism of keeping space order unchanged. From that idea, the study consists in an analysis of social particularities and their relation to space valuation. Insistence is made on the attitude of the groups towards the public powers' incitements to produce more. Powerful sociological weights are maintained thanks to a system of land laws based on religion. The conclusion is that, even in this environment with limited natural resources, some kind of development is possible under the condition that all the peasants should be freed from everything that stops their impulse. In that sense, learning to read and write, information, national integration, and technical training of rural population seem to us important preliminary steps.

The Krumen and the development of the South-West Ivory Coast. This article is the logical follow-up to a doctoral thesis submitted in 1972 comprising a historical and geographic study of the Krumen of the coast of West Africa, particularly those of the Ivory Coast. For generations the Krumen signed on as specialised deck-hands and dockers on European boats trading along the West African Coast. Returning to the south-west Ivory Coast after an absence of 11 years, the author sets out the position in which the Krumen now find themselves -witnesses of the progressive disappearance of their traditional source of employment without really having a clear idea of what they should turn to as an alternative. The reduced opportunities for obtaining work on ships, and the changes in the way this employment operates, which were already noted in 1969 had, in fact, considerably been aggravated by 1980 : the effects of growing unemployment, particularly on the methods of recruitment, are analysed here and proposals put forward which seek to eliminate their abuses. Taking into account the anormous development the region has experienced under the aegis of ARSO (the Regional Planning Authority for the South-West) the author spells out the direct consequences of «Operation San Pedro» on the local populations which had been orientated essentially towards maritime employment. Among the possibilities for new employment available to the Krumen the maritime activities of the new port, albeit the most closely related to their traditional skills, benefit them only to a limited extent. It is above all a small-scale peasant farming which, thanks to the existence of roads and a port -and hence, markets-seems likely to establish a certain appeal among a former maritime people whose traditional attitudes are still deeply embedded and who are worried about their future.

The urban landscapes of Manono (Zaïre). Founded as a tin mining centre, Manono today is a scattered agglomeration on a site cut out by its natural and anthropic elements. The city still remains highly influenced by colonial urbanism set up, as interessed mainly by the site of industrial and mining activities and the european style houses. Nevertheless independence brought a new and original element : the abandoning of the old camps occupied by the miners who moved to the «cités» (residential quarters) just growing semi-rural type of the residential areas where the majority of the city's population lives today.