This report describes a pilot study ofnatural risk hazards in the peri-urban extension areas ofthe Dakar Metropolitan Area, Senegal. The area subject ofthis study stretches across 580 square kilometers, coveringless than 1 percent of the national territory, but housingabout 50 percent of Senegal's urban population. Much ofthe rapid population growth of the Dakar Metropolitan Areais taking place beyond the boundaries of the Department ofDakar (the city center), in peri-urban areas that combinetwo disquieting features: they present significantvulnerability to some natural hazards, and they have unclearadministrative and governance arrangements, often being outof the direct oversight of established urban and rural localgovernments. Situations like this are not unusual indeveloping countries, and call for more systematic attentionto hazard risk management in peri-urban areas, including abetter understanding and awareness of the nature of thehazards that they face as well as of the institutionalcapacities and measures that would be necessary to managethem better. The objective of this pilot study is,therefore, two-pronged. First, the study intends to proposea new methodology for quick assessment of natural hazardrisks at a metropolitan region scale, using new tools ofspatial analysis based on geographic information systems(GIS) data. Second, the study aims to apply the principlesand diagnostic questionnaire of the climate change cityprimer developed by the East Asia region of the World Bankto get a comprehensive view of the institutional frameworkfor climate change-related hazard risk management existingin the city at this time. Bringing the spatial and theinstitutional analyses together, the study proposes andstarts to develop a number of dissemination andawareness-raising tools that can help to inform differentstakeholders about the general parameters of the naturalhazard risks facing the Dakar Metropolitan area. The pilotstudy concludes with a broad action plan for Dakar, to rampup disaster management practices, as motivation for astakeholder debate to define subsequently a set of specificand viable actions.