[Portrait] Pierre-Alexis, CODATU’s intern in Niger

I am Pierre-Alexis LANGLAIS, currently a 3rd-year student at ENTPE Lyon (M2), specialized in transport and urban planning. I did my second-year internship (M1) at the central city of Niamey. It is thanks to CODATU and particularly to Jean-Jacques Helluin I get the opportunity to go to Niger. Upon my arrival, Mouctar MAMOUDOU, my tutor and mayor of the city of Niamey welcomed me very nicely. He presented me to all municipal directors whose assignments issues were linked with urban mobility. Once the presentations were made I get at work in a context of heat that was unfamiliar to me. My internship missions were to ensure a link between the CODATU, and the city of Niamey, follow the steps towards the first Urban Mobility Forum (UMF) and do a pilot project for the improvement of urban mobility in Niamey. The project concerns urban transport, mainly consisting of 7000 collective taxis and 500 minibuses for a city reaching about 1.5 million inhabitants. The diagnostic was spread over 2 months. In order to face the limit of my knowledge on the subject and the weakness of the data available on the internet, I conducted interviews with a diverse panel of interlocutors: academics, geographers, drivers, unions, members of the Ministry of Transport, municipal employees.

I was then put in touch with Michelin as part of a collaboration for the city’s participation in the World Summit on Sustainable Mobility in Montreal. With the Ville E +, a French start-up, we have developed a serious game on the mobility issues of Niamey (https://www.codatu.org/news/sommet-movinon-a-serious-game-to-addiorior-les-transport-a-niamey/). This interesting exercise allowed me to test possible solutions for the project, and the results obtained, the trends revealed, made it possible to evaluate their relevance.

Back in Niamey, I met other actors whose points of view allowed me to refine the understanding of the subject of study and to propose the most relevant improvement possibilities. Being myself a user of these public transports, I finally fed my study from my additional consumer point of view.

The UMF could not be held in July as initially planned and was postponed to a later date. The priority of Mr. Mouctar MAMOUDOU, first authority of the city, was the holding of the African Union Summit 2019 in Niger, an important event for the country hosting the event for the first time.

I devoted the end of my internship to the synthesis of the collected elements and the drafting of the pilot project. The project was then handed over to CODATU, hoping that it could come to fruition.

Finally, I would like to thank Mr. Mouctar MAMOUDOU for his help and his time. I also thank all the people with whom I worked in Niger, at the town hall or elsewhere. All were extremely kind and gave me a lot. Finally, I thank Jean-Jacques for having accompany me since Lyon during my internship and also for this superb opportunity which leaves me a very positive memory and made me evolve so much professionally and personally.

Avec Mouctar Mamoudou

Devise du Niger

Devant l’Hôtel de Ville de Niamey