Environmental protection, tourism and the new development agenda for the Sahara: the dubious socio-political outcomes of the top-down approach

Géraldine Chatelard (1)

1 IFPO - Institut Français du Proche-Orient

This conference paper discusses critically two development plans for the Sahara and their likely problematic outcomes. The first and most ambitious is the UNESCO (2003) pan-Saharan framework plan for tourism development, which provides guidelines for other international and national development agencies that are invited to use them as the basis for their own action plans. The second is one such action plan, designed by the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme),ii for the Algerian Great South, Phase II (2004) of which has been elaborated in close coordination with UNESCO.

Mots clés: Algeria; development; tourism; Sahara; international organisations

Domaines: Sociologie

Géraldine Chatelard. Environmental protection, tourism and the new development agenda for the Sahara: the dubious socio-political outcomes of the top-down approach. 2008. ⟨hal-00338445⟩