Most disasters are unanticipated– or aren’t soon enough prepared for. With the onset of COVID-19, the pandemic has relayed the importance of disaster preparedness and just how important it is that individual countries, schools, government systems, etc. have manageable and reliable systems in place to prevent such disasters or in the case of unanticipated events such as Covid, understand how to progress and further develop individual societies. My research this summer will take place in Dakar, Senegal, West Africa, where I will be delving into historic and current systems used to manage risks and disasters. Through the use of Dakar’s libraries as well as online peer-reviewed journals, I hope to answer the question of how a city’s development has a clear influence on its disaster preparedness.
Why Senegal?
I am choosing to use Senegal, and more specifically the capital city of Dakar as a case study for its progress in the city development sector when compared to other Francophone West African countries. My current concentration surrounds the politics of urbanity and city development across Francophone West Africa– and as a Senegalese-American, I have found great interest in this country’s ability to take the word “development” and create initiatives (both private and public) that are one-of-a-kind. Stay tuned for the next blog posts where I plan on speaking about some of Senegal’s ongoing and past development projects.
I am interested in seeing how vaccinations against COVID-19 speak to the topics of risk development. It is important to consider the ways in whcih the vaccines are promoted (if at all), who has access to a vaccination, its costs, and how long it even took for the vaccine to arrive to the country of Senegal
This picture was taken in 2014 when Senegal received its first Ebola case. It was the 5th West African country to be hit with the virus. I will be looking heavily at the ways in which the Ebola outbreak was handled in Senegal and I plan on doing so comparatively with COVID-19.