At present, the problems of scale as well as the institutional shortcomings
are likely to be overcome in the course of the decentralization processes
ongoing within most francophone West African countries. The Rural
municipalities are becoming local administrative bodies. In all countries,
municipal development planning is a compulsory exercise, serving as a
prerequisite for receiving access to infrastructure subventions. This allows
integrating land use planning as a task of local governments. At the same
time the enlarged territory and new functions attributed to the municipalities
offer opportunities to scale up some of the good practices and lessons learnt during
the “village level” phase of GT as well as to make good
use of the human resource capital accumulated during that period.