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Urban development and resilience in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Urban development and resilience in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Fight against erosion and flooding in the Kisenso district, Kinshasa

In view of the urgent situation, the Kinshasa City-Province Government, with support from the World Bank, launched an urban development and resilience project mainly focusing on the N’Djili River watershed in Kinshasa. This zone is packed with both physical and social vulnerabilities (severe unemployment and insecurity, poor living conditions in most of the area), worsened by a high rate of erosion as well as recurrent flooding along the N’Djili and Matete Rivers.

This zone fully meets the objectives of the National Climate Change Adaptation Plan approved by the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2006, that, amongst other priority works, includes the fight against erosion and flooding.

Urban development and resilience in Kisenso Kinshasa
Urban development and resilience in Kinshasa

Challenge

Antea Group France teams mobilized national and international experts to develop technical solutions to protect the population from particularly severe and frequent flooding and erosion.  Indeed, informal dwellings are particularly vulnerable with houses literally disappearing in the mud slides and ravines created by violent storms.

Solution

The measures put forward by Antea Group are suitable in an urban resilience context: micro-retention measures on a small plot of land scale, adapted vegetation with the planting of grasses to anchor the earth, use of local construction materials taking into account simple maintenance needs, works scheduling for the construction of infrastructures using a high proportion of local labor, etc.

Technical studies have been carried out within an integrated urban resilience approach and have enabled tender documents to be established.

Antea Group carried out three batches of missions - preliminary design, basic preliminary design, detailed design and tender documents - covering four technical areas:

  • Upgrading the bridges crossing the Matete River
  • Dredging of rivers
  • Drainage of plateau and conveyance of storm waters to the rivers including road construction
  • Erosion stabilization.

Key Figures

  • 380,000 inhabitants benefited by the project
  • USD 50 Million total cost of the project (Antea Group's first estimation)