Review Article The World Bank and the Building of Local ...Review Article The World Bank and the Building of Local Institutionality in Senegal: A Path toward Municipal Adjustment MebometaNdongo

Hindawi Publishing CorporationUrban Studies ResearchVolume 2013, Article ID 301068, 14 pageshttp://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/301068

Review ArticleThe World Bank and the Building of Local Institutionality inSenegal: A Path toward Municipal Adjustment

Mebometa Ndongo1 and Juan-Luis Klein2

1 Institute of African Studies, Carleton University, 228 Paterson Hall, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON, Canada K1S 5B62Department of Geography, Centre de Recherche sur les Innovations Sociales (CRISES), Université du Québec à Montréal, CP 8888,Centre-Ville, Montréal, QC, Canada H3C 3P8

Correspondence should be addressed to Mebometa Ndongo; mebometa [email protected]

Received 13 November 2012; Revised 25 June 2013; Accepted 25 June 2013

Academic Editor: Joris Hoekstra

Copyright © 2013 M. Ndongo and J.-L. Klein. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons AttributionLicense, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properlycited.

This paper examines the impacts of municipal adjustment strategies on territorial governance in Africa, with specific referenceto Senegal, as the result of the action of the World Bank. The paper identifies the process through which the World Bank isreconfiguring the system of actors and changing the local institutional environment to embody its philosophy of governancemodernization. The paper shows how the local actor is brought to contribute to the new focus on governance and the reshaping oflocal institutions, which together comprise a type of urban development that aligns with the tenets of globalization.

1. Introduction

This paper focuses on the governance model crafted by theWorld Bank (hereafter referred to as “the Bank”) for Senegalwhich involved the implementation of a variety of urban de-velopment projects. The activities of this model have an im-pact on the existing organizational dynamics within a giventerritorial context and are designed and deployed in keepingwith the development paradigm adhered to by the Bank [1].This deployment creates favourable conditions for a westerntype of institution building, namely, in that it makes localactors a driving force of the aforementioned building. Byreplicating external policies and implementing developmentprojects conceived by the Bank, these local actors participatein the creation of spaces where a new institutional geographyis instituted and mainstreamed to conform to the westernneoliberal ideology.

More specifically, the new local institutionality ([2], page215) took shape as a result of the implementation of the Bank’smunicipal adjustment processes and the territorialized ver-sion of its structural adjustment programs. As has been welldocumented, the latter are more likely to disrupt historicallyanchored politicoadministrative structures than to achieve

their purported purpose of improving the living conditions ofcitizens. In this paper, we demonstrate the dramatic negativeimpacts of this governance model on the basis of eight inter-related urban projects launched from 1972 on. A close readingof documented facts issued by the Bank and write-ups asso-ciated with these projects make it possible to map out theevolution of resulting transformations.

Section 2 of the paper outlines the research problem andprovides a synthesis of the criticisms formulated in the sci-entific literature about the Bank’s development projects.Section 3 highlights conceptual references that focus on ananalysis of the process of institution building embodying theapplication of the Bank’s projects. Section 4 addresses theresearch methodology. Section 5 shows how municipal ad-justment steered the new governance implanted in Senegal.Section 6 addresses the developmentalist configuration usedby the Bank to “graft” a form of local governance based onan embedded Western model in order to achieve its devel-opment objectives without having to face socioterritorial andadministrative constraints [3]. In this section, we also lay outthe local institutionality process and put forward a model forinstitution building garnered from the inspiring outcomes ofthis new form of governance.

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In all, the paper will show that this new institutionalitybuilding was forged/induced through interventions that fa-voured the destatization and municipalization of governance[4]. Based on factual documents that inform and describe theinstitutional impact of the projects, we then show how theBank, alongside the accompanying global trends, transformslocal space and succeeds in reconfiguring traditional civil,private, and community structures in Senegal. We also showthat, if, a priori, global forces prove to be a deciding factor,the local is not just a victim. This finally creates a “glocal”dynamic, understood as a seamless merger of the globaland the local [5], in which ideas in favour of globalizationintersect with those emanating from the local configurationsto generate the new institutionality, where the global cannotbe considered from the start as the only dominant force. Wethen present the administration and management practicesthat emerge from this dynamic and that characterize thenew governance.We will argue that this transformation takesplace through the simple superimposition, that is, “grafting”[6], of aWestern type of local governance onto the traditionalgovernance model with the goal of implementing a Westerntype of operative efficiency. In other words, a governanceis transplanted without grounding and embedding it in thelocal culture, hence without the necessary legitimacy for itseffectiveness and subsequently without success. Our argu-ments draw from the vast body of literature that addressesneoliberalization as a transformative tool targeting a varietyof domains dealing with institutions, development, and gov-ernance [7], as a process whose delineation can be discursiveto addressmultisector,multifaceted, andmultiscalar dynamicperspectives ranging from the global to the local [8–11] andas a strategy depending on approaches and goals [12, 13]. It iswell known that local structures are affected by neoliberaliza-tion. However, the grafting angle which this paper highlightswill make an original contribution to the understanding ofhow this takes place in African countries, where traditionalsocial structures and social hierarchies are very predominantat the local level.

2. Research Problem: The Global in LocalInstitution Building

How has the World Bank instituted a process of institutionbuilding in Senegal in order to establish a local governancecontext in which the country is constrained to conform to theBank’s modes of actions and values? We frame this questionand the related research problem by means of an analysis ofthe Bank’s urban projects, a breakdown of the discourse with-in the Bank’s knowledge network on urban development inAfrica, and criticisms targeting the Bank.

2.1.TheWorld Bank: Taking the Lead in the Rebuilding of Afri-can Institutions. Since the 1980s, when the Bank’s activitiesfocussed more on development, the Bank has moved to tar-geting mainly institutions. A more effective institutional ac-tion was purported to emerge from the concepts of strength-ening, restructuring, privatization, structural adjustment,and capacity building [14–19]. The Bank tests its hypotheses

in southern countries, where local actors are constrained toadopt these strategies [20–22].The resulting local-global con-frontation consequently turns out to be a contradictory, di-vergent, and paradoxical space that produces the new localinstitutionality. In that context, institutionality, which repre-sents the final stage of institution building, is defined accord-ing to the following five criteria:

(1) technical capacity: the ability to deliver technical ser-vices that are innovations to the society at an increas-ing level of competence;

(2) normative commitments: the extent to which the in-novative ideas, relationships, and practices for whichthe organization stands have been internalized by itsstaff;

(3) innovative thrust: the ability of the institution to con-tinue to innovate so that the new technologies andbehaviour patterns it introduces do not remain frozenin their original form and that it continually learnsand adapts to new technological and political oppor-tunities;

(4) environmental image: the extent to which the institu-tion is valued or favourably regarded by society; thiscan be demonstrated by its ability to (a) acquire re-sources without paying a high price in its change ob-jective, (b) operate in ways that deviate from tradi-tional patterns, (c) defend itself against attack andcriticism, (d) influence decisions in its functionalareas, and (e) enlarge and expand its sphere of action;

(5) spread effect: the degree to which innovative tech-nologies, norms, or behaviour patterns for which theinstitution stands have been taken up and integratedinto the ongoing activities of other organizations ([2],page 215).

The institutional question extends into governance giventhat it affects the actor system [23, 24] and the way in whichthese actors interact and carry out their activities on territor-ies that present, additionally, a strong divide between endo-genic and exogenic forces (in the context of systems andactions, endogenic and exogenic allude to an action or objectcoming from within a system (endogeny) or an action orobject coming from outside a system (exogeny)), that is, animbalanced interaction between local and external forces.

Furthermore, the Bank’s development activities that haveled to local institutional transformations embrace the neolib-eral capitalist logic of which it has become an influential driv-er [1, 18, 19, 25, 26]. Moreover, “Another problemwith the dis-course of neoliberalisation is the question of historical chro-nology-different places experience neoliberalism differentlyover time. The problem is thus a spatio-temporal one” [27].

Thus, the paradigms associated with this reality haveevolved not only through time and space but are closelyalignedwith a type of programming of the programmed soci-ety which channels actions that reinforce the economic de-pendence of, and developmental direction taken by, southerncountries [28, 29].

With a focus on urban development interventions, theBank maintains a type of discourse that, having evolved over

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time on the basis of physicospatial and politicoinstitutionalpriorities [30], constitutes the operational face of theprogress-driven ideology advocated by the Bank and manyinternational donors [14, 18, 19, 26, 31]. We are interestedin the link between institution building and the Bank’soperational options. If these options have indeed influencedactor systems and restructured their activities, one can assertthat a relationship has been established between the Bank’saction and the transformation of institutions at the local level.

2.2. The Legitimization of the Bank’s Discourse and Its Knowl-edge Network. When examining the dynamic into which theBank anchors its macroeconomic and geopolitical frame-work, it is evident that since the 1970s, the Bank has takena neoliberal approach to development, which then took holdin the 1980s following implementation of the structural ad-justment programs. By putting in place the subsequent mile-stones to this approach, a trend toward privatization emergedin which local and civil society have a certain role. However,in Africa, this only applies to institutions built for this pur-pose, given that the traditional African local actor systemsdo not function according to neoliberal-tinged values andpractices. Nevertheless, the neoliberal approach does openup an opportunity for strengthening the municipal actor. Ifthe structures upholding these neoliberal values are part of aknowledge network made up of researchers and institutionswho advocate the new values for governance (fight againstcorruption but also accountability, stability of governments,and effectiveness of public authorities), this knowledge net-work may be seen as legitimizing the Bank’s philosophy re-garding urban development, as it ensures that these newvalues are implemented at the local level.

The knowledge network able to scientifically legitimizethe Bank’s urban development action is composed of its ownexperts based in Washington, its former experts workingin international institutions or in universities, and Westernresearchers promoting themselves as specialists of Africanurban development issues [4].While there is unanimity with-in this network on certain points, such as operationalizationof approaches versus procedural aspects, divergence exists onthe factors that motivate the initiation of projects, the factorsthat contribute to their evolution, their internal and externalinstitutional environment, and the Bank’s role with regard tothe dynamic of its interventions (by highlighting the contextsfor local and external interventions, exposing the factors ofthe Bank’s intervention dynamics [4], these different optionsare set within debates on institutional development; on thesuccess or failure measured using effectiveness and perfor-mance indicators [32, 33]; on the contextual and learning-by-doing perspectives of learning, [34]; on alternatives to currentapproaches in international development [35–37]; and theBank’s hegemony with regard to imposing the neoliberal cap-italist paradigm [18, 19, 26, 38]). Nevertheless, although theauthors belonging to the Bank’s supportive knowledge net-work do not always share the same opinions, the points thatunite them constitute the ingredients of a new local institu-tionality.

These ingredients are framed bymultiscalar (internation-al, regional, municipal, and microlocal) data showing that

territorialized governance is emerging as a common denom-inator. The local institutionality resulting from the Bank’sactions on urban development translates into the type ofgovernance whose local and global dimensions influence oneanother in a context where globalization takes the lead, andthis governance is built from local realities [39–42].

2.3. Critical Analysis of the Bank’s Action. The options of theBank and of the network of knowledge which gives themscientific legitimacy have been the subject of debates andnumerous criticisms. The criticism generally highlights thatthe results fall far short of the forecasts [25] and that theprojects actually exacerbate poverty due to the out-of-controlurbanization and urban density they engender [43].Thus, theprojects are actually worsening the very problems they wereintended to solve. Furthermore, at the macroeconomic level,it is clear that structural adjustment programs have openedthe way to privatization while weakening state authority [16,25, 44–46]. Consequently, centralized state control alsoweak-ened, namely, for the benefit of an imposed globalization,bringing into play municipalities and local groups with aweak grounding on the institutional front and consideredas less legitimate by a population accustomed to traditionalforms of local governance.

The Bank’s role in Sub-Saharan Africa’s urban devel-opment is analyzed within the context of its dynamic, inexistence since 1986, within the framework of the NewUrbanManagement program [47–49] and from the prescriptiveangle (of projects) and the local impacts of its differentinterventions. The research literature of the last forty yearspoints to the Bank’s role as a main driver of neoliberal-ism [50], a role played out at several levels. The Bank steersinstitutions through project inputs and, during project imple-mentation, plays the role of mentor in manoeuvring variouslocal resources and in involving the population. A posteriori,it takes control of outputs in order to maintain its hegem-ony over its national partners. Whatever the form taken toexercise this role, one constant emerges: the Bank’s capacityto interfere in national governmental activities and to reorga-nize state structures [18].

Our framework for thinking through the Bank’s role inAfrica’s urban development is inspired by perspectives relatedto institutional development and collective action [23, 32].Based on these perspectives, we identify three types of actionfigures: the Bank, the state, and “the others,” who include theprivate sector, civil society, and the community. Whether ornot an actor is excluded or included in a given urban de-velopment process depends on the targets used to definethe Bank’s role and concern governance rules, procedures,methods, and structures.

Recognized as the first international actor for urban de-velopment in Africa [51], the Bank plays a paramount rolein the development of urban policies. It defines priorities,prescribes regulations, establishes project objectives, and im-poses theoretical and organizational frameworks outliningproject interventions and operationalization [52]. Thus, theBank redefines and transforms government actions concern-ing urban development [18].


The Bank’s role in African urban development becomesespecially manifest through prescriptive directives. The re-sulting confrontation between the developmentalist configu-rations evokes a constantly evolving discourse and significantchanges in the city that has a direct impact on governments[53]. Although the policies developed by the Bank are tailoredto the countries, they are first and foremost part of itsneoliberal philosophy. This gives rise to the Bank’s role ofassistance to ensure effectiveness of the projects it implements[54]. In this context, schemes are put into place to raise fundsand create the capacity to build the necessary infrastructurefor providing services [55].

The financing of programs and technical assistance foroperations go hand in hand when it comes to, for example,infrastructure, land, residential, or institutional development.The Bank’s dual role as both financier, especially as a donor tostates, and as a strategist of their development has always beenquestioned [56–58].

The Bank then appears as a builder of socio-spatialconfigurations and physico-morphological structures. Asidefrom its role as mediator between urban development actorsin Africa at the vertical and the horizontal scales, both withinthe countries where it intervenes and at the internationallevel, the Bank works toward building local institutionality.This is where it assumes its intellectual role of creating theideas that underlie the policies and that foster knowledgecreation. It then positions itself not only as an actor and anagent of change in development but also as an organizationthat replicates, spreads, and popularizes ways of doing thingsand that implements values [4].The analysis of the Bank’s rolein Africa’s urban development shows how different centresof interest complement one another in an effort to create aframework of milestones to be reached by a local system ofgovernance geared toward globalization.The role of the Bankin urban development of Africa takes several trajectories.TheSenegalese case will enable us to unveil their theoretical andstrategic basis.

3. Conceptual Approach of the Research

The type of institution building at the local level triggered bythe Bank requires that imported regulations and values beadhered to even if these go counter to the local cultural andterritorial identity. In that sense, this type of development isfar removed from the type of social movement that placesemphasis on the importance of space and place [59–61].As formulated by the critique of the actions taken by theBank, this all points to an institutional neoliberalization thatchallenges and unravels the local reality. Neoliberalizationhas spatial and, above all, institutional consequences [7, 9, 12].Notwithstanding its proximity to globalization, its historicalmutations confer it a local reach that is increasingly incon-testable, which renders it vulnerable with regard to the localforce and values dominated by the culture. Moreover, inreference to “local neoliberalism,” neoliberalization producesinstitutional forms relative to its ideological character. In thisway, as an ideological movement, neoliberalization applies

strategies, mechanisms, and processes aimed at the transfor-mation of power structures by pulling the operational leversof NPM.

The New Public Management (NPM) approach was akey vehicle for the realization of the neoliberal state[. . .] the approach is characterized, by among others,disaggregation or corporatization of the public sec-tor; private sector management styles; discipline andfrugality in resource allocation and use; and an em-phasis on outputs [. . .] the public sector which oper-ates along these principles is virtually indistinguish-able from the private sector. Furthermore, the empha-sis on economic norms and values suggest [sic] thatthe citizen is reincarnated as homo economicus, and isgoverned in economic terms.In terms of state institutions therefore, at the locallevel, financial viability becomes an overdeterminingfactor. The optimization of profits (surplus) and theminimization of costs, in a phrase, conventional neo-classical economics, informs practice [. . .] a spatial fixis needed to ensure that the process continues andthe system does not fall into crisis [. . .] as in the pri-vate sector where value is generated off labour, in thesphere of production, in the public sector, a similarprocess occurs in the sphere of consumption as thepoor are used to generate a surplus [. . .] the NPM isthe mechanism through which neoliberalism is artic-ulated at various scales of governance ([27], pages 137-138; 143-144).

The authors who oppose NPM challenge us to look be-yond and to apply ethical standards to the actions and behav-iours that take place withinmanagement structures ([62], pa-ges 32-33, [63–65]). They point to the persistence of poverty,inequalities, imbalances, distortions, marginalization, andpolarization to criticize the economic and socio-spatial out-come of this management style. In that perspective, the crit-ical arguments against NPM are:

(i) the market remains, as it has always been, a flawed al-ternative to the state;

(ii) the evidence on efficiency gains is limited and am-biguous;

(iii) increased managerial autonomy has brought blurredaccountability and higher risk;

(iv) the introduction of competitive principles has turnedpublic organizations into conflictual rather than col-laborative bodies;

(v) there has been a considerable demoralization of thepublic workforces;

(vi) in several cases, public services havemanifestly gottenworse rather than better ([66], page 8).

Given that this reality represents a historical constructstemming not only fromAfrican tradition but also from colo-nization anddecolonization, the governance advocated by theBank remains incompatible with local expectations. It is only


by buttressing certain local actors who can be aligned withthe Bank’s objectives that the operationalization of the newgovernance model becomes in any way possible. To reach thelocal institutions, neoliberalization takes the path of privati-zation of resources, activities, procedures, and services. Fromthat point of view, it has restructured the state. The reformsinitiated in this perspective were implemented among othersthrough the structural adjustments.The interactions betweenthe protagonists then highlights the new actors.

The concept underlying this process is one of “grafting,”as discussed in the introduction [53]. This concept delineateshow innovation comes from cross-breeding, hybridization,and syncretism.This groundbreaking statement is neither pu-ritan nor a “copy-cat” but rather leans closely toward insti-tutional and cultural change that leads to the unexpectedand the unpredictable. A graft can be analyzed from the per-spective of its constitutive elements, namely, the techniques,the knowledge, and the modes of organization. Generally,one analyzes components of grafting based on copied localforms of adaptations and on the organizational techniques,knowledge, and models in place [53]. In this context, theendogeneity and exogeneity are held together by connectorsbetween existing and emergent archetypes. Through the ac-tions of current actors, this culminates in a degree of inter-connectedness between local cultural systems and importedsystems, which are then expected to coexist in a dynamicorganizational transformation.

Sometimes, this grafting process is achieved on a largescale through joint ventures or through acquisitions andmergers with other organizations. At other times, the graftingconsists of smaller-scale actions, such as the hiring of an indi-vidual, or group of individuals, who possess the knowledgecurrently lacking in the organization.The practice of graftingcalls on organizations to increase their store of knowledge byrecruiting employees or by acquiring firms or organizations(or building long-term alliances with them) in the possessionof information not previously available within the organiza-tion ([6], pages 1080-1081).

In the remainder of this paper, we will use this conceptto analyze the new attributes set within the jurisdiction ofmunicipal and local actors. The concept of grafting will en-able us to see that these attributes, in spite of their complexityand intersectorality, allow the actors to adapt their activitiesby adopting newways of doing things to generate other formsof territorial systems of governance [67]. Thus, adjustmentspaces are put in place to facilitate the operation of neolib-eralism.

As an offshoot of organizational dynamics, governanceoperates within a geospatial framework wherein its on-the-ground deployment of urban development activities arestructured according to capitalist, neoliberal-tinged schemesthat promote the interaction of actors [68]. Are we witnessingthe establishment of a remote-controlled “glocal” governancein Africa [69]? It is thus in the framework of glocalization,that is to say, at the intersection between the local and theglobal, that we situate this effect.

“Glocalisation” refers to the twin process whereby,firstly, institutional/regulatory arrangements shift

from the national scale both upwards to supra-nation-al or global scales and downwards to the scale of theindividual body or to local, urban or regional config-urations and, secondly, economic activities and inter-firm networks are becoming simultaneously morelocalised/regionalised and transnational. In particu-lar, attentionwill be paid to the political and economicdynamics of this geographical rescaling and its impli-cations [70].

According to Swyngedouw, it is the usage of local mate-rial and resources that allows globalization to operate. Inthat perspective, we will show that the interplay of actorsemanating from the institutional restructurings is alignedwith this logic of endo/exoconfrontation. As for civil societyand the local actors—the focus of this article—we show theduality of the global and the local and the interdependence ofthese two scales.

Relations between civil society groups may not end atcity limits but may instead stretch into internationaland global space. The conditions in which urban cit-izens live and work are not only created locally, whichmeans that their agency can be expected to stretchbeyond the local level ([41], page 1884) [. . .] “Glocal”products, owned by global owners and regulated bylocal actors are developing, forging new styles of “glo-cal” governance. This governance is based on therule of law, through which global players own andmanage infrastructure assets in various countries injust one portfolio ([68], page 2) [. . .] the “local” andthe “global” are deeply intertwined [. . .] local actionsshape global money flows, while global processes, inturn, affect local actions. [. . .] the local and the globalare mutually constituted, or so it seems ([5], page 137-138).

The challenges of financing projects, the ways in whichthey are pegged to specialized international funding agencies,and the involvement of global actors through contractualobligations explain the increased role and structuring impactof projects within the local institutional landscape.

4. Questions, Hypothesis, and Methodology

How was the institution building of the territorial context,which made it possible to redefine local governance, put intoplace? Which levers were used for this building? To answerthese questions, we hypothesize that such building would nothave been possible without the grafting of an organizational,action-based, and procedural technology. The technology inquestion is in a way the point of reference without which itis impossible to imagine the implementation of this type ofterritorial reconfiguration through the Bank’s urban develop-ment interventions and, even less so, the procedural mecha-nisms on which the municipal adjustment is based. Accord-ing to this hypothesis, the reconfiguration of the local institu-tional dynamics in Senegal could not have materialized with-out a local input whereby the external actor proposes and thelocal actor applies the two interacting and intermeshing such


that the instituted local governability conforms to the neo-liberal (Western) culture. In a step-wise manner, the transferstages are seen to permanently cement the highlighted devel-opmental approaches into place.The juxtaposition of externaland local cultural and technoscientific universes facilitatesthe reconfiguration of an institutional architecture to favoura new actor dynamic typology where local constraints areminimized.

The methodology for carrying out this reconfigurationcomprises five stages.

(1) An in-depth study of the eight projects serves asmile-stones during the four-decade urban intervention inSenegal uncovered in our close reading of the WorldBank’s factual documents. We are thus able to ascer-tain how each project was conceived, which ap-proaches were put forward, and what referential prio-rities were advanced in relation to the different evolv-ing phases.

(2) An examination of the scientific literature associ-ated with the formal and informal evaluation of theurban interventions in Senegal. We are thus able todetermine the place of the projects’ bilan, that is, itsstrengths, weaknesses, lessons learned (justificationof results), and links with earlier and later projects,within the dynamic that characterized the trajectorytoward municipal adjustment.

(3) A study of socioinstitutional transformations using atransfer of developmentalist configurations based oninternational development paradigms to which theBank adheres.We identify the external environmentalfactors reproduced in the local territory as well as theprocess that gave rise to a new local actor system.

(4) An analysis of the local actors’ contribution to theconceptualization of themunicipal adjustmentmech-anisms and operational strategies. We show the con-vergence between two different actor systems inte-grated in the developmentalist configurations thatshape the new local system of governance.

(5) Consultations with an urban development knowledgenetwork are used to validate our interpretation of thelocal effects of the Bank’s action.

The Senegalese case study was retained due to its repre-sentativeness of the issues related to the Bank’s urban inter-vention. The projects analyzed were conceived as the phasesof a pilot experiment to be applied throughout Sub-SaharanAfrica [25, 31]. The selected period covers forty years of theBank’s urban development projects in Senegal. The meth-odological tools used include the grids for empirical, inter-pretative, and theoretical analysis. The projects’ context, themanagement mechanisms, the bilan of the experiments, theobjectives, and the operational strategies enable us to unveilthe territorial changes as well as changes within the actorsystem, from one phase to the next. The structural environ-ment, the operational learning, and the governability makeit possible to examine the philosophy, the ideology, andthe developmental paradigms integrated in the operational

Table 1: TheWorld Bank’s projects and their approaches in Senegalby type of priority.

Priority phase Projects Approaches(1) Physicospatial(1972–1981) Sites and Services Land development

(2) Politicoinsti-tutional(1984–1997)

(i) Technicalassistance for urbanmanagement andrehabilitation(ii) Municipal andhousingdevelopment

Institution building

(3) Urbanproductivity(1989–1997)

(i) AGETIP 1(ii) AGETIP 2

(i) Job creation(ii) Entrepreneurship(iii) SMEproductivity

(4) Municipalization(1997–2006)

(i) Support to munic-ipalities/communes 1(ii) Support tomunicipali-ties/communes 2

Decentralization andmunicipalresponsibilization

(5) Municipaladjustment (since2006)

Reinforcement andequipping of localcommunities

(i) Local investment(ii) Municipalgovernance

Source: Ndongo (2010) [4].

strategies, their local appropriation, and their impact on thestructuring of a territorial system of governance [4].The con-cept of grafting helps to illustrate the stimulation, the embed-ding, and the territorialization of the introduced local insti-tution building.

5. The Bank’s Urban Interventions in Senegal:Inductive Vectors of the New LocalGovernance

The eight projects selected for this research targeted a vari-ety of objectives in the fight against poverty and adoptedsectoral orientations for urban planning and development.Together, these projects are representative of a demonstrablynovel institution building process. At once characterized bythe context, the management mechanisms, the bilan, theobjectives, and the operational strategies, they incorporatethe technologies and procedures designated for this con-struction. In other words, the development of these projectsinvolves both the design and institutional deployment rele-vant to their implementation. The deployment of projects ofthis type then allows to reconfigure the systems in place.Thus,in this process, long-established, historically built local ref-erences are rendered obsolete, or even delegitimized, result-ing in a new hierarchy of actors. We group the eight projectsinto five priority-based phases: physicospatial (1972–1981),politicoinstitutional (1984–1997), productive (1989–1997),municipalization (1997–2006), and municipal adjustment (inoperation since 2006). These priorities are indicative of themain trajectory taken by these projects (Table 1).


The physicospatial priority phase (1972–1981) respondedto a socioterritorial context wherein the Bank’s urban devel-opment policies were applied for the first time while pavingthe way for future interventions. During this phase, a projectcalled Sites and Services aimed at facilitating self-help con-struction, self-financing, accessibility, urban infrastructures,and urban services through a strategy of land developmentmodernization. The party with whom the Bank interactedfor this project was the government, and the stated projectobjective was poverty reduction. The project engaged inallocating residential sites and improving public servicesfor low-income families. The Sites and Services project alsoinvolved the testing of international development fundingschemes that had been used in other underdeveloped areas,such as Latin America, where government-run self-helpconstruction on allotted sites had been experimented within the 1960s [19, 26]. However, the project priority, whilecoherent with the Keynesian vision of intervention at thestage of local and regional development, gave rise to waysof occupying land that essentially failed to deliver long-lasting or satisfactory solutions for the poorest and mostdisenfranchised (as Duque and Pastrana [71] show withreference to the case of Chile, and Cohen [43] with referenceto the case of Dakar).

Without seeking to advocate the position of the state ascentral actor in matters of local governance, the realizationof this project created a transitory dynamic that forcedthe state to negotiate with actors it was not accustomedto dealing with, in particular the private sector. Already,it had to finance the housing through the households andno longer through the public sector. As the only actor, itdirected and maintained the monopoly of the local policiesand actions. The institutional map was thus characterizedby a sole actor, complemented by specialized parapublicorganizations, such as the Office de L’Habitation à LoyerModique (OHLM) (Affordable Housing Bureau). In addition,a territorial polarization prevailed between the capital Dakarand Thiès. With regard to local governance, the externalactors—the Bank, the International Development Associa-tion, and the United Nations Development Programme—remained omnipresent. Locally, these external actors wereconfronted with an institutional framework that includedthe government, the OHLM, the management of Sites andServices, and the municipal administrations of Dakar andThiès. The pre-existing local structures were restructuredand formalized such that traditional local actors associatedwith local chiefdoms, family, tribal, and religious associationswere excluded from the dynamics of the projects. Theseactors were, however, able to remain active in the localsocioeconomic dynamics.

The second priority phase (1984–1997), encompassingtwo projects, highlighted a change in direction. Centered onpoliticoinstitutional interests, this phase turned to institutionbuilding as its approach, with a main focus on housing, insti-tutions, economic performance, operational effectiveness,resources, investment, and municipal management. Definedin more normative terms, its aim was to sensitize, even tocreate, awareness among local authorities for the importanceof self-help management by the local actors and through

privatization. The two new operationalized projects that wegroup under this priority are centered on, on one hand,technical assistance for urbanmanagement and rehabilitationand, on the other hand, municipal and housing development.The main concrete measure undertaken by both projectswas housing construction, which was monitored within alarger testing framework that aimed to ensure proper urbanmanagement within institutional development.This measuretriggered a trend where local, private sector, and civil societyvalues are encouraged.

Moreover, the second priority phase of the institutionalframe work no longer includes the OHLM (which hadbeen operative in the Sites and Services project of the firstphase) but the Senegalese Ministère de la Planification etde la Coopération Externe (Ministry of Planning and Inter-national Cooperation). This demonstrates the institutionalimportance of the first project of this phase—TechnicalAssistance for Urban Management and Rehabilitation. Sevengovernmental and municipal structures ensure the man-agement of the project, which represents five departments(The departments of the Economy and Finance, Planningand Cooperation, Equipment, of the Interior, and Urbanismand Habitat), three sectoral organizations, and the Com-munauté urbaine de Dakar (Greater Dakar Authority). Inaddition, some twenty local actors are involved, comparedto only a dozen in the Sites and Services project. However,the decision-making powers in Dakarese and ministerialinstitutions continued to remain strongly centralized. Forexample, the public administrationswere assigned the totalityof tasks, while the decentralized instances, such as theCommunauté Urbaine de Dakar (Greater Dakar Authority),the Direction des Collectivités Locales (General Directorateof Local Authorities), and even the Secrétariat d’État à laDécentralisation (Decentralization Secretariat), participatedneither in planning nor in the programming of invest-ments or in urban and housing policies. The decentralizedadministrations were under-represented in the Comité deSuivi (Monitoring Committee) and there was no indicationwhatsoever of the participation of the private sector. Onthe other hand, private firms were consulted in the frame-work of the technical assistance during each of the priorityphases (among those, we distinguish: EPEVRY (projectsteering), CEGIR (urban investment programming), OTUI(urban development and housing policy), BCEOM (munici-pal policy), and LAFERRIERE (transportation policy)). Localparticipation remained a priority but was limited to theexecution of tasks and was strongly regulated. In this way,the reconfiguration of the actors reflected the investmentsschemes and the planning and programming and allowedthese same actors to act at the national scale. In parallel,the municipal policies were given a new dynamic throughthe creation of a municipally managed public roads office.In the mode of governance in place, the preparation andimplementation of development projects were therefore dele-gated to local agencies who were not involved in the activitiesof the previous project. The new institutional measuresthereby implemented became manifest in the governancemechanisms. As a spinoff effect, self-management becamesprimordial during the secondproject of this priority phase, as


did the amplification of the role of the local.The latter becamemore active with regard to the mobilization of financial re-sources, whichwas realized through the involvement ofmanylocal actors, even if some belonged to the public sector. Thephase also involved the redefinition of the contractual clausesconcerning areas such as reimbursement, intermediation,and technical aspects, all under the auspices of the Bank. Onthe whole, this second phase constituted a slow phasing outof the former focus on physical interventions.

The politicoinstitutional priority phase was comple-mented by two projects that we have grouped as the pro-ductive priority phase (1989–1997). Named AGETIP 1 andAGETIP 2, these projects were part of a job creation experi-ment in the urban environment and their main objective wasthe validation of the operationalization of urbanmanagementwith productivity. The AGETIP projects were part of anapproach aimed at creating jobs, fostering entrepreneurshipand setting up small- andmedium-sized enterprises. Empha-sis was laid on a state-civil society mediation strategy thatfacilitated project start-ups and, in so doing, gave rise to alocal hierarchy whose legitimacy was warranted only by itsrepercussion at the governmental level.Whatwas particularlysought here was the creation of a stable, socially anchoredmunicipal infrastructure development base for the munic-ipalities. For this, efforts were made to promote individualcompetences, intensive work—where profits are given tolocal communities—and the development of managementskills through the application of established guidelines fromexisting procedural manuals. In addition, the growth of localenterprises and the decentralization of governmental powerwas encouraged with the aim of privatizing the managementof local-level development. In that context, the Bank alsostandardized its procedures to facilitate the assessment of theoutcomes.

Amidst these strategic reorientations, the institutionallandscape was additionally marked by the impact of thestructural adjustments, alongside all the other interventionsof the Bank. But what became important here was the placeof the local level, manifested by the importance given tothe role of civil society and community organizations, nextto the private sector. The horizontal and vertical interactionthen took place thanks to the intermediary actors, who be-came indispensable in the operational mechanisms. Empha-sis was placed on recruiting local labour, involving youthin the operations, and on targeting small- and medium-sized businesses, above all industrial firms from residentialhousing construction. This is what resituated the frameworkof governance, assisted by the reconfiguration of structuresthat had been previously eliminated from the scene. By count-ing on the functioning mechanisms of these structures,the realization of public works such as construction, therefurbishment and maintenance of equipment, work orga-nization and corresponding training in urban settings, andthe supervision and followup of activities represented thefundamental components that led to the creation of anadapted structure called Agence Spéciale (Special Agency).

This agency has a particular legal status and a privatemode of functioning. For example, it is not subject to theregulations, salary standards, or personnel policy of public

services. As an independent institution (AGETIP 1), theAgence Spéciale intervened in the entire cycle of projects,as did the Bank. The innovation resided in the promotionof a local and private entrepreneurship. Centralizing urbandevelopment operations in the new institutional configura-tion, the Agence also participated in the selection of the con-sulting firms and subprojects.This period also saw the settingup of foundations and the solidification of institutional pri-vatization, procedures, and resources. In the second stage(AGETIP 2), during which civil society took a more pro-nounced shape, AGETIP became more active in the socioin-stitutional landscape, an approach that then became attractiveat the national and international scale. During this period,municipal projects were stimulated and municipal develop-ment became a priority item. The trend was thus towardmunicipalization. In short, the institutional geography wasfrom then on played out in the arena of the municipalities,who became the centre of gravity in a decentralizing dynamic.This triggered a strong trend toward destatization, which thencalled for a rescaling of many areas, be it the state, networks,the economy, institutions, governance, or the territory [70].The period also saw a dynamic of deconcentration and na-tionwide coverage that targeted all small municipalities withadaptationmechanisms specific to their situation. Even whensituating destatization in a logic of weakening of the state forthe benefit of strengthening of the local, civil, and communitycapacities, these ideas were not new.

The notion of a shift from government to governanceat local and regional scales to describe a series ofinterrelated changes is now well accepted [. . .]. Theblurring of sectoral boundaries, particularly in termsof new forms of cooperation and interdependencebetween the public and private sectors, has been partof a “destatization” process whereby the role of thestate has shifted from direct management to one ofregulator, coordinator and enabler [. . .]. In seeking toaddress how mechanisms of rescaling operate, [. . .]the state and political strategy continues to play a keyrole in the development of new sites and scales of gov-ernance, with a recursive process of “filling-in” and“restatization” integral to processes of “hollowing-out” and “destatization.” By these related processespower is being transferred, in complex manner, todifferent tiers of the state in an active and contestedprocess of new state formation.This approach focusesattention on the ongoing central role of the stateand the processes by which rescaling are taking placewithin any particular temporal and spatial context.It also emphasizes how power operates through theinstitutional context and the asymmetrical powerrelations between networks. With the emergenceof increasingly complex governance arrangements,power resides not in institutions but within networks[. . .]. With respect to city governance, the statethrough its ensemble of institutions, especially thosethat perform a strategic role, continues to play amajorrole in activating and deactivating network connec-tions and regulating which interests are included


or excluded within governance arrangements ([72],pages 99-101).

The fourth priority phase (1997–2006) comprised a typeof local urban governance that called on the municipalitiesto assume responsibility for the application of developmentpolicies emanating from decentralization. The decentraliza-tion gave the municipalities autonomy and allowed the ac-tors to interact freely within the local communities. Twomunicipal/communal support projects (programs 1 and 2)were grouped into this priority phase. Program 1 encouragedmunicipal responsibilization, municipal development andreforms, municipal privatization, and municipal adjustmentby means of deconcentration, that is, the transfer of certainstate prerogatives and the empowerment of local administra-tions. Program 2 addressed issues of municipal finance, com-petitiveness, and cooperation to facilitate interaction betweenthe local, national, and international levels. Recommendedas part of an effort to strengthen urban management andincrease production and an experimental effort at the outset,the program eventually stood out for its ability to face thechallenges of decentralization by creating local structures thatinteracted to promote urban development based on localgovernance.

Concretely, the existing actors aligned themselves withnew institutional arrangements. The mayors became moreamenable to compromise with the government, the Agencede Développement Municipal, the municipalities, the Asso-ciation des Maires du Sénégal, the Association des Commu-nautés Rurales, the Agences de Gestion des Contrats Ac-ceptées, the financial institutions, and the private sector (con-tractors, consultants, and beneficiary population). However,notwithstanding the presence of an agency delegated with theexecution, coordination problems arose. By situating itself inthe overall local urban framework, program 2 pursued thelong-term goal of integrating the country’s 76 municipalitieswithin the local urban governance, where they were thenexpected to evolve within an intermunicipal network. Theoutcome of earlier projects were linked to the projects ofthis priority phase, as they progressively led to greater localresponsibilization and relevant municipal adjustments at thelast stage of grafting a new local institutionality.

The final and fifth priority phase, underway since 2006,targets investment and municipal adjustment and is pursuedwith a project focused on the reinforcement and equipmentof local communities. As the conclusion of the precedingphase, which prioritized the validation of municipal action,this project reinforces the implemented orientations of thatphase. With a main focus on the municipality, it injects moreenthusiasm in its decentralization efforts by building onearlier projects, reinforcing local capacity, improving munic-ipal resources, encouraging the maintenance of municipally-financed equipment, and sustaining urban infrastructures.

To the extent that municipal adjustment aims for theimplementation of modalities of territorial governance thatare coherent with the global policies of the Bank, it appearsas the territorialized version of structural adjustment. Theimplemented activities result from the normative measuresthat the Bank puts into place to promote urban development.

Overall, the activities allow to channel the actions followingdifferent priorities and within the context of a programmingthat relies on the operational learning of approaches andprojects.

6. Analysis: The Transfer and the Grafting of aDevelopmentalist Configuration

Contrary to the Keynesian, state-centeredmodel that charac-terized the first priority phase, as outlined in the precedingsection, the change of direction exhibited by the projects inthe second phase demonstrated that the Bank adheres to anew paradigm that advocates a weakening of the state anda reinforcement of local structures. This change was madepossible through three convergent actions, namely, the rescal-ing of power, the experimentation of municipal develop-ment, and the financing of programs. Overall, the projectspromoted a rescaling of power [73–75]. On the one hand,they conceived the local as a site for starting up privateenterprise and, although embedded in an enlarged institu-tional framework, promoted a local orientation for manag-ing the projects. Furthermore, operational strategies weresupervised by a committee which gave a lot of space to localactors. The reinforcement of municipal authorities enhancedformal administrative bodies at the expense of traditionalactors, such as village chiefs. Participation, privatization, con-sultation, collaboration of the target population, and tech-nical assistance were all promoted, as well as integrationof institutional development to the physical intervention.On the other hand, certain global responsibilities, such asthe coordination of donors, were given to internationalinstitutions. Management was set up so that an external andmixed framework could oversee the maintenance as wellas the administrative and operational control of projectsin terms of enforcing regulations, allocating resources, andrepaying loans. Following this logic, the Bank plays the roleof intermediation.The steps taken to relinquish certain globalresponsibilities and to reinforce local authority (municipal-ization) were essentially a move to disarm and weaken statepower in favour of building private capital, civil capacities,and a locally based administrative elite (destatization).

The phases of the Bank’s urban intervention in Senegalanalyzed in this paper reveal a dynamic experimentation ofmunicipal development. This dynamic is characterized by abreakdown, experimentation, and modeling that reflects theBank’s intentions to foster municipal adjustment in Senegal.As a result, the municipal adjustment put into applicationin the last phase emphasizes investment, coordinated, andsustained interaction targeting the local population, intermu-nicipal relations, and coordination of donors. By municipaladjustment, we mean the ensemble of activities leadingto the reinforcement of local structures, described as thegovernance and regulation framework applied by the Bank.

Concerning the financing of programs, the Bank has ahands-on approach to its operations that leaves little roomfor the recipient countries. The financing of programs, inamounts ranging from 60 per cent to 90 per cent of costs,is part and parcel of its stated objective relating to urban


development in Africa. With regard to technical assistance,this role appears paramount because it reveals the relation-ship between Washington (the headquarters of the Bank)and its sites of operationalization. This position of the Bankinvolves defining the management approach and developingthe environmental management and action plans. The oper-ational aspect of this phase requires the preparing of audits,the putting into place ofmonitoring and information systems,and providing education on environmental issues [51, 76, 77].Given that the financing role is often pegged to infrastructurebuilding and the provision of urban services, the Bank’sobjectives entail a series of conditions, and these in turn setthe basis for repaying loans, the criteria for selecting targets,the choice of on-the-ground actors, and the definition of howparticipating institutions should interact [51]. This places theBank in a position of strength that allows it to impose theadoption of new practices which, framed as organizationalefficiency measures, are essentially an integral part of theneoliberal ideology [43, 78].

The Bank intends to conceive and produce indicators thatcan be used to evaluate national and local actors with regardto project objectives, which, as discussed, are largely imposedby the Bank itself [78]. With this in mind, local policiescan be formulated, especially concerning the participation ofprivate-sector partners [50].Thepublic-private partnership isused as a strategy for promoting the active role of civil societyorganizations [79], a role played out outside governmentalstructures but that has a direct impact on local populationsthrough the Bank’s backed-up policies [80]. Through thepromotion of participation and partnerships, the Bank trans-forms democratic structures and the institutional dynamic.

When the Bank sets the priority guidelines for developingsouthern countries, it plays a role in territorial structuring,planning, and land development [81]. When it builds theinteraction schemes between actors of the urban scene, itsrole in territorial and institutional governance becomesman-ifest through the implementation of new institutional andnew systems of governance processes [82].

The growing influence of international developmentagencies has led to transformative changes in urbannetworks,down to their very fabric—one wrought with contradictionsand conflicts. These transformative changes stem from inad-equate material conditions that define periurban land rights,the infrastructure and the economy.This has given rise to theestablishment of a polarizing planning system that produceswinners and losers and that has failed to protect the poorfrom exploitation. The institution building of this system isintended to foster the hegemony of economic growth andglobal competitiveness, international markets, and globalinterests rather than resolving the problems of local commu-nities. The best indicators for winners are access to resourcesand the right to own land. Urban structure and humanagency represent the materiality of transformations triggeredby globalization through international development agenciessuch as theWorld Bank with regard to urban development inAfrica [52].

The institution building of local governance has been atthe heart of the Bank’s urban development project dynamicsin Senegal for four decades. In the first place, this building

is guided by the milestones conceived by the Bank andwhich are pegged to environmental normativity. As this envi-ronmental normativity evolves like the Bank itself, the trajec-tory dictated by the nature of the projects studied remainsindependent of any history or local aspirations, and evenless so of any colonial points of reference. The institutionalbuilding is brought about largely through the grafting of thedevelopmentalist configurations preferred by this interna-tional institution which subscribes to a hegemonic agenda.In the second place, local governance is part of a transferprocess whose ultimate purpose is to internalize the Bank’sapproaches, endogenize the operationalization mechanismswhich it has put into place, and ensure the enculturation oflocal institutions with its own values. National and localactors participate to meet an experiential learning require-ment put together by a knowledge network that has legit-imized the priorities advocated by the Bank. In the thirdplace, this building is the result of interactive contacts be-tween the Bank (its experts and representatives) and the polit-ical and economic actors of Senegal. These contacts areestablished in a context of inequality but where the exchangesnevertheless allow for reciprocal acquisition of technicalknowledge and competencies stemming from the structuraland social transformations of urban governance that makeSenegal a laboratory. We witness the building of a local insti-tutionality that embodies and makes possible the applicationof the Western neoliberalism to which the Bank adheres.

In that context, we conceive of “procedural technology”as a set of techniques/tactics, mechanisms, strategies, andpractices allowing to shape institutions and to reconfiguretheir profile in accordance with their priorities (physicospa-tial, politicoinstitutional, urban productivity, municipalisa-tion, and municipal adjustment) and the corresponding ac-tors.These actors act at themicro- andmacroterritorial scalesin the framework of glocalization such that the graft of eachtype of priority group produces another type of governance(Table 2).

7. Conclusion

The objective of this paper was to show how a process ofinstitution buildingwas instituted by theWorld Bank in Sene-gal in order to establish a local governance framework thatmakes the country conform to the modes of actions and thevalues which it promotes at the global scale. It was shown thatthe four-decade-long urban intervention in Senegal by theWorld Bank resulted in the grafting of a form of local gover-nance propped up by a transfer of the Bank’s developmentalistconfigurations.

The territorial embedding of new social hierarchies andthe transfer of developmentalist configurations are at thecrux of the local institutionality implanted in Senegal due tothe establishment of urban development projects. The terri-torial framework of this new governance is possible thanksto the transfer and embedding of tested knowhow.The impo-sition of the Bank’s rationality and operational learning con-stitute the principal vectors of change. Moreover, the imple-mentation of the rescaling process inevitably translates intoa governance shakeup resulting in destatization, where the


Table 2: The building process of the new local institutionality in Senegal.

Priority type Actors on the scene GraftingProject objective Operative transfers Governance

(1) Public institutionsSelf-construction, self-financing,accessibility, infrastructure, andurban services

Operational mechanisms (i) Deresponsibilization(ii) Local management of poverty

(2)(i) Municipalities(ii) Public andprivate sectors

Economic performance,operational effectiveness, andmanagement of municipalresources

(i) Administration,management(ii) Induction andexperimentation ofinstitutionaldevelopment

(i) Destatization/municipalization(ii) Socioeconomic development(iii) Privatization(iv) Civil society(v) Communitarianism

(3)

(i) Institutions andterritorializedstructures(ii) Civil actors andenterprises

(i) Individual competences,intensive work, manual ofprocedures and delegation, localenterprises, and coordination(ii) Privatization of municipalmanagement(iii) Use of local artisanal labourand the local and privateentrepreneurship

(i) Territorial entities’prerogatives(ii) Uniformization-harmonization(iii) Networking(iv) Appropriation(v) Incorporation

(i) Destatization/municipalization(ii) Sustainability(iii) Intermediation(iv) Interactivity(v) Local self-management

(4)Institutions andterritorializedstructures

(i) Deconcentration(ii) Local responsibilization

(i) Systems of actorsand/or intra- andextraterritorial actions(ii) Autonomization(iii) Localresponsibilization

(i) Destatization/municipalization(ii) Local governance

(5)(i) Municipalities(ii) Privateenterprises

(i) Centralization at the localscale(ii) Public, state-controlledmanagement

(i) Territorialization ofactors’ systems(ii) Interaction(iii) Asymmetricreconfiguration

(i) Administrative decentralization(ii) Privatization of theoperationalization of developmentstrategies(iii) Delegation of certain powers tolocal actors(iv) Civil and community participation(v) Vertical, horizontal, andinternational cooperation ofprotagonists

transfer of state responsibilities toward the local level iscombined with the abandonment of certain global responsi-bilities to the benefit of international institutions. The Bank’sdevelopmentalist configurations are also replicated in Senegalby enforcing the transformation of a territorial actor system.Finally, the state-centered management has been weakenedin the interest of localizing procedures and mechanisms foroperationalizing development strategies. In all, this processhelped put in place an enriched framework for setting up anew form of governance.

The complex developmentalist configuration on whichthe process is based is challenging to understand, and in thatsense is keeping the Bank’s experts on their toes, as these areexpected to address issues about its urban policies. Alongsidethese experts, field agents, technicians, and project man-agers were responsible for implementing the operations.A quasicosmopolitan universe, this configuration managedconsiderable amounts of material and human resources inthe urban development of Senegal and is furthermore part

of a technoscientific infrastructure for producing and testingideas that can later be introduced into local realities. Thelogic behind taking action is part of the neoliberal cultureimposed on the local environment. The universe of selectivediscourse and normalized regulation shapes and encapsulatesthe touted technical model which espouses the vocabularyof globalization. This is the basis on which activities framedaround well-honed concepts are operationalized without anylocal constraints [3, 53]. In addition to this carefully craftedstrategy, different projects were burdened by preconditionsranging from the macroeconomic environment to local taxa-tion systems, the rule of law, transparency and accountabilityof local governments, public and political administration, theconstitution, democracy, and the allocation of financial andhuman resources to ensure efficient international regulation.All of this captures the essence of the Bank’s ideological andparadigmatic frameworkwhichwas grafted onto Senegal.Theassimilation of these Western norms and rationales by localactors ensures the enculturation of this framework as well


as the application of new technical, knowledge-based, andorganizational models. It especially facilitates local adapta-tion through compliance with set developmental paradigms,which generallymeans a jettisoning of themethodologies andorganizational modes already in place. The programming ofactivities inherent to these paradigms brings about changesin the territorial politicoadministrative fabric resulting fromthe confrontation between the exogenic and the endogenic.The grafting leads to a local appropriation of the developedapproaches, to the incorporation of these approaches into thelocal institutional landscape, and to the state’s adoption ofthe regulations associated with the New Public Managementmodel advocated by the Bank.The change produced in Sene-gal is a reflection of the harmonization of the developmentmodels imposed by international development institutionsin developing countries. The NPM scheme transplanted intothese countries is then used as a reference for themodeling ofreforms in the public sector [83]. Whereas mimicry or imita-tion is mediatized through cultural adaptation mechanisms,administrative grafting is put in place through internationalagencies using development projects [84].

Herein lies the space where, far from a simple administra-tive reform, we witness the transfer of policies from the northto the south. Without alluding to a voluntarist (self-willed)programming scheme, a structured transformation can beseen through evolving and coherent priorities. Regulation iseither programmed or imposed by applying paradigms thatare built by international aid agencies and that arise fromtheir developmental ideology. By incubating these ongoingconcepts, the local actor contributes to this dynamic by repro-ducing and by applying the same concepts. In that context,vertical and horizontal interactions take place within systemsof actors. In a transversal manner, the private sector, civilsociety, and community groups participate in the provisionof services traditionally assumed by the state. These actorscan then initiate and operationalize the urban projects. Thisis what redefines the role of the state. Another institutionaltypology emerges without the loss of local values that aresufficiently anchored in the culture (sociofamily and spatialgroupings, traditional, community and confessional associa-tions).We are thus seeing the birth of a hybridmodel betweenglobalization and location. In that context, “Neoliberalism[. . .] is playing a part in the reconstruction of extralocalrelations, pressures, and disciplines [. . .] as well as extralocallearning” [10]. Even though the public/private duality is atthe centre of the institutional and territorial restructuring,new synergies emerge between communities and associationsbased on the internal and external values.

In summation, the contribution of this paper is to delin-eate the model of local hybrid governance as an outcome ofthe evolution of the Bank’s urban interventions in Senegal.This result arises not only from the top-down orientation oftheBank’s actions but also from the bottom-updynamic at thelocal level. This also explains the glocal form of governance,as seen in the arrival of new actors, the emergence of newroles and responsibilities of those, and the manifestation ofnew institutional interactions. Avenues for future researchinclude examining the permeability of the local and its zones

of resistance, as well as the increasing strength of the local forrestructuring the learning of the Bank.

Institution building is founded on concepts that supportand sustain territorial embeddedness and the processes thatare part of the conveyed knowledge acquisition and that con-form to the developmentalist configurations of actors actingat the upper end of the development projects [53]. Futureresearch should thus also include the exploration of the inter-nal tasks of the institutions themselves, from both an interiorand exterior perspective of the organizational environment,and of the societal dimension [3].

Acknowledgments

Theauthors would like to thank ProfessorsMichael Alain Co-hen, Richard Stren, Beacon Mbiba, and Otto Ikome for theircomments and contributions to the preliminary versions ofthis paper.

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