The study analyzes the management of the humanitarian emergency that followed Cyclone Chido’s passage through Mayotte, focusing on two areas: the institutional response and mutual aid. This research marks a significant development for Groupe URD, which is applying its analytical framework to a French territory for the first time, after three decades of expertise outside Europe.
Key Findings
- A preexisting systemic vulnerability, exacerbated by the disaster: The cyclone did not create the island’s vulnerability; rather, it served to reveal and amplify a chronic crisis.
- The limitations of a centralized crisis management model: Designed based on metropolitan models, prevention tools proved ill-suited to the scale of informal settlements and the island’s specific sociocultural context.
- The crucial role of community support: mutual aid among residents emerged as the first immediate and vital response.
The key finding of this study is that it is likely impossible for a single government to manage a crisis of such complexity on its own from an administrative standpoint that is both isolated and top-down. A paradigm shift appears to be necessary. Replace traditional top-down governance with a horizontal, partnership-based approach, in which the government’s role is not to be involved in every area, but rather to coordinate and combine the contributions of all stakeholders (municipalities, traditional authorities, CSOs, and NGOs).
The overhaul of the emergency response system in Mayotte should be structured around four major pillars:
1 – Institutionalizing local memory and foresight
2 – Adopting a pragmatic regulatory approach
3 – Ensuring that aid is provided unconditionally and that access is universal
4 – Embracing a hybrid, partnership-based governance model
Beyond these challenges, Mayotte should no longer be viewed as a remote region in a state of perpetual crisis, but rather as a pioneering laboratory for territorial resilience. The lessons in agility learned from this disaster offer a historic opportunity to modernize the French model of disaster management in the face of contemporary climate challenges. The essential prerequisite, however, remains the establishment of a climate of trust among the various stakeholders—which is currently lacking—and the creation of genuine bridges between citizen-led initiatives and public recovery strategies, without allowing the population’s remarkable resilience to serve as an excuse for the government’s withdrawal.