The LERPDES team from Dakar came for these first secondments to the Kick-off meeting. Beyond the three days devoted to the launching ceremony of the project, the stay in Brest has allowed to widen the circle of knowledge of the colleagues, teachers and researchers of the IUEM and the other countries, and to deepen certain lines of research in law of the sea and in Marine Spatial Planning (MSP).

The doctoral students have launched research for the project in different directions, particularly in the law of the sea and coastal planning law. All of them have been trained to learn on the research methodology. Mohamed Diedhou study the protection of marine and coastal environment in the context of the Abidjan Convention. Mamadou Bassirou worked on “State actions at sea in Senegal: legal aspects and link with marine spatial planning”. His work was facilitated by the remarkable availability of documentation in the La Pérouse library (IUEM) and in the library of UBO. Fatou Ndiaye has started a research work on the link between human activities at sea and pollution from land-based sources in order to contribute to the inventory of legal rules applicable to the marine environment in Senegal.

These secondments finally made it possible to define in a collegiate way with the other researchers the different axes of collaboration during the four years of the project. These axes take into account the specificities of beneficiary institutions and partner institutions. The UCAD delegation hope that this project, which has just started, will enable Marine Spatial Planning to contribute to sustainable development in the twenty-first century.