Tarik Ghodbani is a Professor at the Department of Geography and Land Planning at the University of Oran 2 Mohamed Ben Ahmed, director of the Laboratory for Research on Geographic Space and Land Planning (EGEAT), associate researcher at the Center for Social and Cultural Anthropological Research (CRASC), and member of the Scientific Council of the American Institute for Maghrib Studies (AIMS). He holds a PhD in Social Geography from the University of Oran (Algeria) and University of Paris 8 (France) in 2009. After completing his PhD, he lived abroad to pursue research projects in collaboration with such institutions as the Fulbright Foundation (2013 – USA), and DAAD (2011 – Germany). He currently supervises students’ dissertations on social transformations, and local and environmental governance systems. He has published (with other researchers) articles on development issues in the Maghrib in international peer-reviewed journals. In addition to research, Ghodbani works as a local development expert on evaluation projects addressing the problematics of involving local communities in development and environmental protection plans with participatory approach.