Quatre décennies de « coopération franco-africaine » : usages et usure d'un clientélisme

Since 1960, the French African Policy has been based on a military, economic, and cultural cooperation. Behind the official goal, that of development aid, lie the French geopolitical priorities. Since general de Gaulle, the French diplomacy is obsessed by the international place of France in the World. The influence of France in Africa is an integral part of this. Therefore the cooperation between France and Africa is clientelist : the economic and financial aid provided by France is exchanged with the French privilege of an economic and political influence within the African states, which includes military support in situations of border conflict and even domestic « disorder ». This conception of the relationship between France and Africa has not really changed with the French presidents who have followed general de Gaulle. Consequently, the French government institutions of cooperation with Africa have been in the same situation since the sixties. The result is such a complex, obsolete and inefficient labyrinth that the real execution of French African policy is carried out in non-official political and business networks. A radical reform of this policy is now necessary, due to the new international context : the end of the Cold War, the French involvment in the European process, and the increasing dependance of Africa on the Bretton Woods institutions

Les processus d'intégration régionale, vecteurs de recomposition du système international ?

Since the late eighties, the new regionalism is the most important wave of regionalism ever experienced in the world: every continent is now involved in one or several regional integration processes. This article aims at assessing the real impact of these processes on the international System. The method consists of comparing and building typologies of the main regional integration processes which have been created out of Europe, according to four criteria: the sense of the integration, the quality of political cooperation between the member states, the degree of economic integration, and the degree of institutional and political integration. The outcome of the analysis is that, except from Europe, integration is rarely scheduled to go deep or has a real chance to go deep in the short term. Hence the ability of the new regionalism to shape the international system deeply remains quite limited

Navigation référencée multi-capteurs d'un robot mobile en environnement encombré

Dans ce travail, nous nous intéressons à la navigation référencée vision d'un robot mobile équipé d'une caméra dans un environnement encombré d'obstacles possiblement occultants. Pour réaliser cette tâche, nous nous sommes appuyés sur l'asservissement visuel 2D. Cette technique consiste à synthétiser une loi de commande basée sur les informations visuelles renvoyées par la caméra embarquée. Le robot atteint la situation désirée lorsque les projections dans l'image de l'amer d'intérêt, appelés indices visuels, atteignent des valeurs de consigne prédéfinies. La navigation par asservissement visuel 2D nécessite de s'intéresser à trois problèmes : garantir l'intégrité du robot vis-à-vis des obstacles, gérer les occultations des amers d'intérêts et réaliser de longs déplacements. Nos contributions portent sur les deux derniers problèmes mentionnés. Dans un premier temps nous nous sommes intéressés à l'estimation des indices visuels lorsque ceux-ci ne sont plus disponibles à cause d'une occultation. La profondeur étant un paramètre déterminant dans ce processus, nous avons développé une méthode permettant de l'estimer. Celle-ci est basée sur une paire prédicteur/correcteur et permet d'obtenir des résultats exploitables malgré la présence de bruits dans les mesures. Dans un second temps, nous nous sommes attachés à la réalisation de longs déplacements par asservissement visuel. Cette technique nécessitant de percevoir l'amer d'intérêt dès le début de la tâche, la zone de navigation est limitée par la portée de la caméra. Afin de relaxer cette contrainte, nous avons élaboré un superviseur que nous avons ensuite couplé à une carte topologique intégrant un ensemble d'amers caractéristiques de l'environnement. La tâche de navigation globale peut alors être décomposée sous la forme d'une séquence d'amers à atteindre successivement, la sélection et l'enchainement des mouvements nécessaires étant effectués au sein du superviseur. Les travaux ont été validés par le biais de simulations et d'expérimentations, démontrant la pertinence et l'efficacité de l'approche retenue.This work focuses on the navigation of a mobile robot equipped with a camera in a cluttered environment. To perform such a task, we propose to use the image based visual servoing (IBVS). This method consists in designing a control law using visual features provided by the camera. These features are defined by the projection of a characteristic landmark on the image plane. The IBVS based navigation requires to address three issues : the robot security with respect to the obstacles, the management of the occlusions and the long range navigation realization. Our contributions are mainly focused on the two last mentioned problems. First, we have dealt with the visual features estimation problem during occlusions. As the visual features depth is an important parameter in this process, we have developed a predictor/corrector pair able to estimate its value on-line. This method has provided nice results, even when the used measures are noisy. Second, we have considered the problem of performing a long range navigation with an IBVS. However, classically, using this kind of controller greatly limits the realizable displacement because the reference landmark must be seen from the beginning to the end of the mission. To relax this constraint, we have developed a topological map and a supervision algorithm which have then been coupled. The first one contains the most characteristic landmarks of the environment. Using this information, it is possible to divide the global navigation task into a sequence of landmarks which must be successively reached. The supervision algorithm then allows to select the right task at the right instant and to guarantee a smooth switch between the different motions. Our works have been validated by simulations and experimentations, demonstrating the efficiency of our approach

The CEOS Recovery Observatory Pilot

Over the course of the last decade, large populations living in vulnerable areas have led to record damages and substantial loss of life in mega-disasters ranging from the deadly Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 and Haiti earthquake of 2010; the catastrophic flood damages of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the Tohoku tsunami of 2011, and the astonishing extent of the environmental impact of the Deepwater Horizon explosion in 2009. These major catastrophes have widespread and long-lasting impacts with subsequent recovery and reconstruction costing billions of euros and lasting years. While satellite imagery is used on an ad hoc basis after many disasters to support damage assessment, there is currently no standard practice or system to coordinate acquisition of data and facilitate access for early recovery planning and recovery tracking and monitoring. CEOS led the creation of a Recovery Observatory Oversight Team, which brings together major recovery stakeholders such as the UNDP and the World Bank/Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery, value-adding providers and leading space agencies. The principal aims of the Observatory are to: 1. Demonstrate the utility of a wide range of earth observation data to facilitate the recovery and reconstruction phase following a major catastrophic event; 2. Provide a concrete case to focus efforts in identifying and resolving technical and organizational obstacles to facilitating the visibility and access to a relevant set of EO data; and 3. Develop dialogue and establish institutional relationships with the Recovery phase user community to best target data and information requirements; The paper presented here will describe the work conducted in preparing for the triggering of a Recovery Observatory including support to rapid assessments and Post Disaster Needs Assessments by the EO community

WCDRR and the CEOS activities on disaters

Agencies from CEOS (Committee on Earth Observation Satellites) have traditionally focused their efforts on the response phase. Rapid urbanization and increased severity of weather events has led to growing economic and human losses from disasters, requiring international organisations to act now in all disaster risk management (DRM) phases, especially through improved disaster risk reduction policies and programmes. As part of this effort, CEOS agencies have initiated a series of actions aimed at fostering the use of Earth observation (EO) data to support disaster risk reduction and at raising the awareness of policy and decision-makers and major stakeholders of the benefits of using satellite EO in all phases of DRM. CEOS is developing a long-term vision for sustainable application of satellite EO to all phases of DRM. CEOS is collaborating with regional representatives of the DRM user community, on a multi-hazard project involving three thematic pilots (floods, seismic hazards and volcanoes) and a Recovery Observatory that supports resilient recovery from one major disaster. These pilot activities are meant as trail blazers that demonstrate the potential offered by satellite EO for comprehensive DRM. In the framework of the 2015 3rd World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR), the CEOS space agencies intend to partner with major stakeholders, including UN organizations, the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), international relief agencies, leading development banks, and leading regional DRM organisations, to define and implement a 15-year plan of actions (2015- 2030) that responds to high-level Post-2015 Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction priorities. This plan of action will take into account lessons learned from the CEOS pilot activities

Security Systems in Francophone Africa

This research report is a broad-based study that seeks to understand the structural and developmental processes that characterise the security sector in Francophone Africa. Although each country has a distinct political history and tradition, similarities in the security apparatus, rooted in its inheritance from the colonial and post-colonial periods, can be found between Francophone countries in Africa. In the former French colonies, there are similarities to the French security system which are very strong on the normative side, such as the legal and institutional framework or the defence and security actors. However, even if these Francophone African countries borrow a lot from an originally French security system in terms of the institutional design of their security apparatus, they deviate considerably from it in terms of daily practice. The issue at stake in this paper is to highlight the kind of institutional framework prevailing in this set of countries and the specific considerations that international assistance will have to take into account. The paper also analyses briefly the difference between Anglophone and Francophone security systems. Finally, it makes some recommendations that might assist the security sector reform policy agenda and donor and recipient responses to the security challenges faced in Francophone AfricaAfrican Security Sector Networ