SITE SELECTION CONSIDERATIONS

SITE SELECTION CONSIDERATIONS

1. The available vacant lots identified within the Baghere village will now be selected with regards to the following criterions as inspired by the U.S.

General Services Administration Public Building Service's philosophies (Service, n.d). Amongst the other site, we found the ideal lot to be most feasible compared to the other vacant lots by weighing up these criterions:

Amongst the other site, we found the ideal lot to be most feasible compared to the other vacant lots by weighing up these criterions: • Location • Legacy • Politics and Partnerships • Project Management • Financial Performance

Figure 7. Locations of vacant lots identified within the village of Baghere, Senegal (images adapted from Salo, 2021)

Table 2. Assessment Rating Matrix on the Ideal Lot versus Other Vacant Sites based on location, legacy, politics and partnerships, project management, and financial performance (table by author, 2021)

Attributes Ideal Lot (Rating 1-10) Other Vacant Lots (Rating 1-10)

Location

Legacy

Politics and Partnerships Located at the periphery but still near the town centre for ease of access and safety for the women participants, located at a relatively higher topographical level that minimizes risk of excess flooding impact from the Casamance River and rainfall, has access to variety of local road infrastructure easing access to site throughout the whole project life cycle. Water sourcing are available from the wells within a few metres radius of the site as evident from photographs being given by the Bauo Salo committee. Electricity poles was spotted near the site based on the photographs provided. As these sources are considered scarce within the region, access to these resources is a great opportunity posed for our project (9)

Sites are far away from town centres more often then not. Some has access to the Balmadou forest for sourcing materials such as bamboo useful for the building process. Some are located to nearby village which might complicate the political boundary for the land tenure; however provides chances for local women to network with adjacent region thereby improving the Senegalese gender equality index even higher through more participants in the project, some are near the Casamance River that allows natural water sourcing with approval from authorities where necessary. Topography howver are mostly located at lower level of the topography resulting in greater likelihood and consequence of flood impacts from rainfall and overflow from the Casamance River. Uncertainty on the availability of water and electricity infrastructures (9) It is uncertain on the extent to the historical status of the site on the available information on. It would be mandatory to collect further information from the surrounding localities, community, and authorities with regards to the historic status of the site. Participatory design will be most relevant with regards to involving the local community and authorities with regards to this aspect of consideration which is rather social (0) Minimized risk to land tenure due to community having been informed of the agenda with regards to Kaira Looro's Women House Higher land tenure disapproval risk due to community being uninformed, greater possibility that the land will be used for

Project Management

Financial Performance

TOTAL Project. Community and authorities' approval is highly likely compared to other vacant sites under the customary law regime (8)

Site location allows ease of access due to availability of vast roads (useful for materials transport, community gatherings for discussions and activities during the operational stage, etc). Location near the town centre allows greater community involvement and participatory design due to convenience of distance allowing for less risk for tenure approval and securing the land for the women as soon as possible to improve gender equality index as soon as possible (9) This will be measured in terms of community costs. A consideration that emerges would be the location risks (I.e. greater distance from town center that might increase likelihood of less local women (and men where applicable) participating in the event) and information risks (confidence of estimating the community benefits and costs through the social returns on investments conducted). The more detailed information given by Bauo Salo for the ideal site gives rise to less variability in financial performance estimates thereby making it more feasible site to be selected from a financial perspective (10) 36 agricultural purposes based on Baghere's current economic status as per the current development status of the region outlined in the project brief. Further information might need to be collected in order to determine whether this is the case or not with regards to community's interest to the Kaira Looro project. (5) Greater flexibility of benefits from a location perspective to be selected from with regards to the Women's House project. However, uncertainty of information provides less specific information to how the sites would be beneficial to the project compared to the detailed information available for the ideal lot. Further information collection would improve the feasibility of these sites (7) Although there could be vast benefits that could be derived from selecting another sites (I.e. there is a possibility that other sites might be more optimum in terms of location relative to the ideal lot in terms of the criterion outlined), lack of information provides less confidence for the team in estimating the social returns on investments and subsequent communal financial performance of the other sites relative to the ideal lot. Further information provided will leverage the feasibility of other lots at latter stage of the project (9)

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Figure 8. The Site Selection Rating Breakdown (left); and in overall respectively (right) (figures by author)