The financing agreement aims to implement the country’s Digital Economy Acceleration Project (PAEN).
By Ibrahima Dione
Mamadou Moustapha Ba, Senegalese Minister of Finance and Budget, and Keiko Miwa, Director of the Regional Office of the World Bank for Cape Verde, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania and Senegal, signed their agreement Thursday.
“The Digital Economy Acceleration Project (PAEN), which operationalizes Axis 1 of the Emerging Senegal Plan (PSE), aims to expand access to affordable and climate-resilient broadband connectivity and improve the adoption of e-government services and electronic medical records,” Mr. Ba explained in his speech.
In total, the World Bank will disburse $150 million, or about 91 billion CFA francs.
“This important financial assistance is a testimony, once again, to the excellence of the economic and financial
cooperation between the World Bank and Senegal. It reflects the confidence and friendship of the financial institution and, therefore, of the international community in our dear country,” he went on to say.
The Digital Economy Acceleration Project, said Abdoulaye Daouda Diallo’s successor, includes “the improvement of a legal, regulatory and institutional environment favorable to the digital economy and respectful of the climate; the development of a resilient broadband infrastructure with a focus on the national fiber optic backbone and last mile connectivity in the Casamance and the Groundnut Basin areas.
It will support the digital transformation of the public sector by strengthening the technical foundation and services of e-government and digital adoption through improved literacy and digital skills, especially among women and youth and increasing access to health information to improve health service delivery.
In addition, the NEAP includes a contingency emergency response component that can allow for the disbursement of uncommitted balances in rapid response to eligible crises or emergencies that may arise during its implementation.
Through this project, the Government of Senegal wants to promote “digital adoption through the participation of the population in the digital economy,” address “the main demand-side barriers, namely the provision of useful local content through digital public services, the improvement of digital literacy and skills” and develop “digital
health with the establishment of an ecosystem allowing the deployment of secure digital health information systems.”
In his final remark, the Minister of Finance and Budget hailed “the World Bank’s commitment to accompanying Senegal with a record volume of financing to the tune of $3.4 billion, or about 2,032 billion CFA francs, for the financing of 32 active projects.
According to Mamadou Moustapha Ba, “the partnership with the World Bank remains very satisfactory both from the point of view of the diversity of interventions that affect all the priority economicsectors of Senegal and the quality of the portfolio with an average disbursement target of 20 percent during the fiscal year, which has been largely exceeded in recent years.”
ID/fss/as/APA