L’objectif de cette étude consistait à explorer la contradiction naissante entre d’une part, la politique de l’eau menée au Cameroun depuis l’indépendance et d’autre part, les réalités urbaines de contrôle et d’usage informels de l’eau. Les concepts de « gouvernance » et de « communauté » ont été utilisés pour analyser comment les populations affirmaient, de façon individuelle ou collective, leurs droits sur l’eau et comment de telles revendications étaient légitimées. Les concepts de « négociabilité » et de « flexibilité » ont permis de comprendre comment les droits d’utilisation et d’accès à l’eau étaient négociés et contestés en fonction de conditions changeantes. Le concept de « société civile » a été employé pour refléter le caractère multi scalaire du pouvoir et sa normalisation dans des réseaux de la vie quotidienne, régulant ainsi les pratiques et les relations sociales. Les résultats montrent l’existence d’un grand nombre d’arrangements institutionnels de niveau local qui régissent l’accès à l’eau potable dans les communautés. Les leaders traditionnels, les représentants élus et les comités de gestion des points d’eau potable tendent à se compléter dans le développement et l’application des arrangements institutionnels. L’étude conclut que l’informalité des institutions et des droits de propriété dans la gouvernance de l’eau des petites villes semblent entretenir des situations socio-économiques complexes. Il s’agit là d’un point commun entre les trois sites étudiés. En définitive, la multiplication des acteurs de l’eau a débouché sur une sorte de chevauchement des compétences de contrôle et de gestion tant dans l’espace que dans le temps. / The objective of this study was to explore the emerging contradiction between on the one hand, the water policy conducted in Cameroon since independence and secondly, the urban realities of “informal” water control and use on the other. The concepts of "governance" and "community" were used to analyze how people individually or collectively claimed, their water rights and how such claims were legitimized while the negotiability/flexibility and hybrid concepts were used to analyze how resource rights and access are negotiated (informal and formal) and contested in view of changing conditions. The concept of "civil society" was used to reflect the multiscale nature of power and its standardization in networks of daily life, thereby regulating the practices and social relations. Results show that there are a number of local level institutional arrangements that govern access to potable water in communities which may vary depending on the source, ownership (privately owned or communally owned) interest and the purpose for which the water will be used. Traditional leaders, “elected” leaders and the relevant water point committees tend to complement each other in developing institutional arrangements and enforcing these. The study concludes that the informality of institutions and property rights in small town water governance harbor complex socio-economic situations, which is a common feature in the three study sites (Bali, Bafou and Kumbo), where rights overlap in both time and space with a variety of different degrees of intensity being applied in the management of different water schemes. Such processes are not predictable, because of the specific characteristics of each community, and one has to deal with setbacks and conflicts.

Paris has been recurrently affected by floods in the recent years. Such events of heavy precipitations are expected to grow in intensity while being concentrated on shorter periods of time. Subsequently, the risk of floods will increase. The municipality must act accordingly and achieve resilience. Paris is part of the biosphere as an social-ecological system, human activities and the environment are complexely interrelated. The system must become resilient to surprise events to ensure its sustainability. Adaptive governance has been recognized in the field of flood risk management as the means to achieve such resilience. An adaptive governance presents five characteristics: a multilevel feature, public participation, tailor-made solutions, appropriate scale and learning capacity. This thesis aims to analyse how the municipality of Paris incorporates the adaptive approach in its flood risk governance. It also aims to identify the elements it lacks to develop a successful adaptive flood risk governance. Based on the analysis of interviews held with officials of several departments of the municipality and of a selection of official text-based documents several conclusions were drawn. When analysing the multilevel feature of the flood risk governance it appeared that institutional fragmentation was the result of a lack of leadership at the scale of Paris. Regarding public participation, I observed a lack of measures in the governance, both at the basin scale and at the municipality’s scale. However, the municipality does possess the tools to involve citizens in the decision-making process. Tailor-made solutions are duely recommended and implemented, however, multiple constraints hinder their implementation. The governance showed particular interest in the role of the appropriate scale to adress flood risk. The learning capacity is clearly displayed in plans and honed by the municipality. It appears that the adaptive flood risk governance of Paris is in need of a leader that will coordinate the actors, make the strategies coherent and address the constraints to the implementation of tailor-made solutions.

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