Publications by Armel Firmin Kemajou Mbianda

Bridging the Gap: Misaligned Perceptions of Urban Agriculture and Health Between Planning and Design Experts and Urban Farmers in Greater Lomé, Togo

Jérôme Chenal, Armel Firmin Kemajou Mbianda, Akuto Akpedze Konou, Pablo Txomin Harpo de Roulet

Urban agriculture (UA) is a longstanding practice in African cities, characterized by some distinctive features. In particular, the amount of land devoted to UA in these cities exceeds that used in Western countries, presenting challenges in areas such as ...

MDPI AG2025

Exploring the Association of Urban Agricultural Practices with Farmers’ Psychosocial Well-Being in Dar es Salaam and Greater Lomé: A Perceptual Study

Jérôme Chenal, Armel Firmin Kemajou Mbianda, Akuto Akpedze Konou

African urban agriculture (UA) has garnered attention for its contributions to food security and socio-economic improvement. However, its impact on the psychological well-being of farmers has received minimal focus. This study explores the psychosocial eff ...

MDPI AG2024

Urban Governance of Household Waste and Sustainable Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Study from Yaoundé (Cameroon)

Jérôme Chenal, Armel Firmin Kemajou Mbianda

More and more cities in Southern Africa are struggling to manage their waste in a context of rapid urbanisation and increasing poverty. In the Cameroon’s largest city, Yaoundé, managing household waste is a growing concern. The public and the authorities c ...

MDPI AG2023

Two Decades of Architects' and Urban Planners' Contribution to Urban Agriculture and Health Research in Africa

Jérôme Chenal, Armel Firmin Kemajou Mbianda, Akuto Akpedze Konou, Baraka Jean-Claude Munyaka

Urban agriculture (UA) is an ancient practice in Africa that meets social- and health-related needs. However, it is unclear whether architects and urban planners have incorporated the topic into their research and practices. This study aimed to assess the ...

MDPI2023

Apprendre des villes africaines

Jérôme Chenal, Rémi Jaligot, Armel Firmin Kemajou Mbianda, Rim Mrani, Hassan Radoine

Le premier article d’une revue est toujours le plus difficile à écrire. Que doit-on y mettre ? Qui doit écrire ? Doit-on mettre des résultats de recherche prometteurs, une vision programmatique et stratégique de la revue qui se lance ? Doit-on citer les au ...

2020

Comprendre la construction des périphéries urbaines à Lomé et Yaoundé

Armel Firmin Kemajou Mbianda

Urbanization in Sub-Saharan Africa is mainly marked by an extremely high speed. For a couple of decades, it has become more and more difficult to study and control the urbanization processes using the available means due to their rapidity. These conditions ...

EPFL2020

A New Approach to the Collection and Spatial Analysis of Land Values in Lomé and Yaoundé

Jérôme Chenal, Armel Firmin Kemajou Mbianda, Martí Bosch Padrós

Understanding the land market is crucial when analyzing the spatial dynamics of cities. Spatial models, which are widely used to describe the growth of cities, are underdeveloped in Africa, due in part to the lack of urban data and/or the difficulty of col ...

2020

Analyzing four decades of literature on urban planning studies in Africa (1980–2020)

Jérôme Chenal, Rémi Jaligot, Armel Firmin Kemajou Mbianda, Akuto Akpedze Konou

Although rapid population growth will give them a significant weight in global urbanization by the middle of the century, African cities remain little known. As a result, they are essentially outside the global intellectual arena on urban issues, which jus ...

2020

Assessing motorcycle taxi activity in Cameroon using GPS devices

Jérôme Chenal, Rémi Jaligot, Armel Firmin Kemajou Mbianda, Martí Bosch Padrós

The emergence of motorcycle taxis as a mode of urban transport in Africa can be seen as a bottom-up response to the larger problem of a demand that is not sufficiently met by public services. Transcending the debates regarding the relevance of this solutio ...

2019

La construction des périphéries urbaines en Afrique Subsaharienne

Jérôme Chenal, Armel Firmin Kemajou Mbianda

2019

Cultural ecosystem services provision in response to urbanization in Cameroon

Jérôme Chenal, Rémi Jaligot, Armel Firmin Kemajou Mbianda

In Africa, cities are unable to accommodate population growth within their current administrative limits, putting pressure on ecosystem services (ES) in peripheral areas. Existing ES related studies in the region were conducted in East and South Africa, an ...

2018

Comprendre la construction des périphéries urbaines en Afrique

Jérôme Chenal, Armel Firmin Kemajou Mbianda

Selon la Banque mondiale, les villes africaines verront doubler leur population en 2040 et tripler en 2050 (Lall, 2017). La force de ces prévisions donne toute sa mesure en les rapportant à l’espace dans lequel elles se réaliseront ; elles deviennent même ...

2017

A new approach to spatial analysis of motorcycle taxis activities: the case of Port-au-Prince, Haiti

Jérôme Chenal, Rémi Jaligot, Armel Firmin Kemajou Mbianda

Motorcycle taxis operate in a non-regulated, uncontrolled environment, raising public health, environmental and economic issues. Consideration of such issues requires an in-depth understanding of motorcycle taxis’ organizational and operational features. U ...

2017

A spatial analysis of motorcycle taxis activities for environmental planning – the case of Port-au-Prince, Haiti

Jérôme Chenal, Rémi Jaligot, Armel Firmin Kemajou Mbianda

We report a novel method for the spatial analysis of informal transport activities for future environmental planning. It uses a combination of spatial data gathered with GPS devices and semi-formal interviews. We show that the current configuration of the ...

2017