Senegal

With an indica­tive finan­cial enve­lope of EUR 154 mil­lion, of which EUR 14 mil­lion comes from the Min­istry of the Envi­ron­ment, Cli­mate and Biodiversity’s Cli­mate and Ener­gy Fund, ICP V cov­ers a sev­en-year peri­od (2024 – 2030), and is aligned with Senegal’s pri­or­i­ty devel­op­ment objec­tives. It there­fore con­sti­tutes the sec­ond part­ner coun­try for Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion in which a whole-of-gov­ern­ment approach will be imple­ment­ed, fol­low­ing the exam­ple of Cabo Verde.

ICP V focus­es on four pri­or­i­ty areas, name­ly health and social pro­tec­tion; tech­ni­cal and voca­tion­al train­ing, employ­a­bil­i­ty and inte­gra­tion into the job mar­ket, focus­ing on finan­cial inclu­sion and the socio-eco­nom­ic empow­er­ment of women and young peo­ple; water and san­i­ta­tion from an envi­ron­ment and cli­mate change view­point; and the gov­er­nance, coor­di­na­tion, mon­i­tor­ing and inclu­sion of cross-cut­ting themes in the imple­men­ta­tion of the new ICP. These cross-cut­ting themes are human rights, gen­der in its mul­ti-dimen­sion­al aspects, inclu­sive gov­er­nance and envi­ron­men­tal sustainability.

In par­al­lel with the for­mu­la­tion of the new bilat­er­al pro­grammes, which start­ed in the last half of 2023, the activ­i­ties of ICP IV con­tin­ued, with progress made, in par­tic­u­lar, under the two bilat­er­al pro­grammes imple­ment­ed by LuxDev: ​“health and social pro­tec­tion” and ​“tech­ni­cal and voca­tion­al train­ing and employability”.

Key inter­ven­tions in the field of health include strength­en­ing the emer­gency med­ical assis­tance ser­vices by set­ting up four cen­tres to receive and han­dle calls, 25 mobile emer­gency ser­vices and 15 new emer­gency ser­vices upgrad­ed with spe­cialised equip­ment, as well as 3 resus­ci­ta­tion ser­vices. In the field of inte­gra­tion into the job mar­ket, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the pri­vate sec­tor, 189 young peo­ple were trained in dig­i­tal and cod­ing occu­pa­tions, with 146 of them cer­ti­fied and a suc­cess­ful grad­u­a­tion rate of 71%.

In view of the impact of dig­i­tal pro­fes­sions on the country’s young peo­ple and its econ­o­my, Sene­gal and Lux­em­bourg decid­ed to build the ​“Cen­tre of Excel­lence for Dig­i­tal Pro­fes­sions (CRMN)” in the new town of Diamnia­dio. This mod­ern infra­struc­ture will be sole­ly ded­i­cat­ed to train­ing in the dig­i­tal pro­fes­sions. Work start­ed in August 2023. In 2023, Lux­em­bourg also posi­tioned itself as a leader in a Team Europe Ini­tia­tive (TEI) in Sene­gal, involv­ing sev­er­al Euro­pean part­ners (EU, Ger­many, France, Italy, the Nether­lands and Switzer­land), in the field of pro­fes­sion­al train­ing and inte­gra­tion around the sports pro­fes­sions. This is against the back­ground of the Sum­mer Youth Olympic Games due to be held in Sene­gal in 2026.

Two mul­ti­lat­er­al projects were finalised in 2023: a Unit­ed Nations Pop­u­la­tion Fund (UNF­PA) project to improve access to high-qual­i­ty health care for the most vul­ner­a­ble groups, with a par­tic­u­lar focus on sex­u­al and repro­duc­tive health, mater­nal and neona­tal health and med­ical and sur­gi­cal emer­gen­cies, as well as a project imple­ment­ed by the Inter­na­tion­al Labour Office (ILO) that focused on entre­pre­neur­ship train­ing as part of voca­tion­al training.

In the field of human­i­tar­i­an aid, in 2023 Lux­em­bourg con­tributed EUR 500,000 to sup­port school feed­ing in Sene­gal, as part of its strate­gic part­ner­ship (SPF) with the World Food Pro­gramme (WFP).

In 2023, ten Lux­em­bour­gish NGOs (ECPAT, Frères des Hommes, Guiden a Scouten fir eng Welt, Hand­i­cap Inter­na­tion­al Lux­em­bourg, PADEM, Phar­ma­ciens Sans Fron­tières, SOS Vil­lages d’Enfants Monde, SANA, Chaîne de l’Espoir Lux­em­bourg and SOS Sahel Inter­na­tion­al Lux­em­bourg) have imple­ment­ed devel­op­ment projects in Sene­gal in var­i­ous areas such as basic social ser­vices, health and san­i­ta­tion, edu­ca­tion and voca­tion­al train­ing, agri­cul­tur­al devel­op­ment, women’s equal­i­ty and demo­c­ra­t­ic participation.