Senegal

Table of Contents

• Overview
• Thematic Focus
• Progress on Aid Effectiveness
• Achievements

Overview

Senegal is one of the world's poorest countries, with approximately 34 percent of its population living on less than US$1.25/day. On the United Nations Development Programme's 2011 human development index, Senegal ranks 155 out of 187 countries. As a result of an inequitable distribution of wealth, there are relatively higher poverty levels in rural areas.

Demographic pressure is a major concern: Senegal's population is estimated at 12.9 million, with 68 percent under the age of 25 and 57 percent living in rural areas. The rate of productivity is low, and unemployment and underemployment rates are high, especially among youth. With Senegal's annual population growth of about 3 percent, some 100,000 young individuals enter the labour market each year. Not everyone has access to education, and illiteracy is widespread, especially among women and girls. Environmental degradation is an obstacle to development in some regions, where accelerating soil erosion, salinization, and the disappearance of vegetation also impact food security.

Drought in the Sahel region has contributed to a food and nutrition crisis that affects more than 800,000 people in Senegal — about 6 percent of the total population. The new government of Senegal has made food security its top priority and called on development partners to respond to the crisis more effectively.

Senegal provides strong leadership in the continent and is a hub of democracy and political stability in the West African region. The transition of power following the relatively peaceful presidential elections of March 2012 and legislative elections of July 2012 show the maturity of Senegal's democratic tradition. Senegal also plays an important role in peace talks and peacekeeping missions in Africa, for instance, in Sudan.

Senegal has identified as follows its most pressing needs under the three strategic axes of its Poverty reduction strategy (Document de politique économique et sociale (DPES, 2011-2015) (in French):

• Creation of wealth and economic opportunities
• Accelerated access to basic social services (including education and health), social protection and sustainable development
• Good governance and human rights

Thematic Focus

In 2009, as part of Canada's new aid effectiveness agenda, Senegal was selected by CIDA as a country of focus. CIDA's objective in Senegal is to contribute to reducing household poverty by 50 percent by 2015. This objective is aligned with Senegal's DPES goal.

Children and youth

CIDA contributes to:

• Improving the quality of education
• Improving management of and access to basic education, especially for girls
• Building skills for employment for youth through formal education, literacy programs, and vocational and technical training to enhance their employability

Food security

CIDA is contributing to Senegal's food security by scaling up its programs in agriculture and agri-food to support economic development in the region of Casamance and the region of Niayes. This will:

• Improve the productivity of small-scale farmers
• Increase product diversification and commercialization
• Improving access to microfinance in rural areas

CIDA also supports the Government of Senegal's decentralization efforts, including local governments' ability to deliver services. At the same time, it continues to work toward the availability, in rural areas, of microfinance institutions to provide more access to financial products and services.

Progress on Aid Effectiveness

Donor harmonization and coordination under the leadership of Senegal's government is improving from year to year, thereby contributing to the government's greater ownership of the development process and prompting greater effectiveness for donors as they work jointly to effect change.

The donors' division of labour is well organized. Canada is the lead bilateral donor in the education sector and currently chairs the group of donors providing conditional budget support, giving CIDA the opportunity to play a significant role in improving donor coordination and harmonization.

Achievements 2011-2012

Children and youth

• Helped create 3,447 new primary schools between 2000 and 2010, an increase of 42% which allowed 587,295 more students to attend school, an increase of 50%
• Trained 13,292 preschool and elementary teachers
• Supported programs to improve the quality of education in 500 schools, serving 60,000 students
• Helped increase overall enrollment in primary school to 93.9% in 2011, up from 72.2% in 2000
• Through its support to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria between 2002 and 2012, helped provide HIV/AIDS treatment to 7,200 people, detect and treat 19,000 cases of tuberculosis, and distribute 1.4 million insecticide-treated bednets to prevent malaria

Food security

• Helped increase the number of people using microfinance loans from 712,500 in 2005 to 1,620,000 in 2011, 44% of them women
• Created 50 new cereal banks serving over 81,000 people, 30% of them women, allowing them to store grain until prices rise
• Helped increase food and economic security for 2,147 farmers by converting 429 hectares to rice cultivation benefiting 12,884 households

Achievements 2010-2011

Children and youth

• Trained an additional 21,000 educators
• Increased overall school enrolment rate to 94.4 percent
• Increased the primary school enrolment rate by 6.1 percent between 2009 and 2010, almost double the annual increase of 3.2 percent between 2007 and 2008
• Increased the national completion rate for students in primary school to 68.6 percent in 2010
• Helped improve learning in 370 schools in four regions of Senegal by developing better physical, health, and nutrition environments

Food security

• Helped create 97 community cereal banks with more than 8,870 members in the Niayes and Casamance regions, and supported cereal bank efforts to allow members to store part of their harvest and sell it when market prices are higher, increasing their incomes

Achievements 2009-2010

Food security

• Initiated six new projects aimed at increasing food security in Senegal

Children and youth (2008-2010)

• Trained more than 21,000 educators
• Increased overall school enrolment rate to 92.5 percent
• Increased school enrolment rate specifically for girls to 95.9 percent, exceeding enrolment rate for boys by 6.7 percent
• Increased the national completion rate for primary schools in Senegal to 59.6 percent
• Filled the competency gap between farm workers and agricultural engineers by creating the 'Brevet de technicien supérieur', a post-secondary diploma

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