( AfDB) - The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank Group granted a loan of EUR 74.5 million to Senegal in Abidjan on 1 December 2023 to support the implementation of the first phase of the Resource Mobilization and Industrial Development Support Programme (PAMRDI-I).

The programme has a number of objectives: expanding the tax base, improving the efficiency of tax control and collection, making the country more attractive to private investments, promoting and formalizing the private sector, and strengthening industrial competitiveness.

“This new programme, approved by the Board of Directors, aims to enhance Senegal’s macroeconomic and financial environment by improving the mobilization of domestic resources, which is set to increase from 18.2 % of gross domestic product in 2022 to 19.4 % in 2024. The program supports several reforms and measures related to the Medium-Term Revenue Strategy, currently being implemented. The objective is to allow the government to have more resources to finance the structuring projects and programmes of the Senegal Emerging Plan and improve people’s living conditions,” said Mohamed Chérif, head of the African Development Bank’s Country Office in Senegal.

The programme will also enable the implementation of the private sector development strategy, the country’ industrial policy and strategy, as well as the integrated national strategy for the formalization of the informal economy. Senegal has potential that offers significant prospects for industrial development, notably through Special Economic Zones and agropoles. The program supports, among other things : (i) the implementation of the National Agropole Development Program in Senegal; (ii) the operationalization of the statutes of the entrepreneur (in order to encourage the informal sector to become formalized): (iii) and the establishment of the regulatory framework for the regulation of targeted agricultural products and their derivatives within the framework of agropoles.

Thanks to this programme, the number of economic operators in the informal sector with business owner status should increase from zero in 2022 to 30,000 in 2024, 30 % of them women. Similarly, the manufacturing sector’s share of the country’s gross domestic product should increase from 15.6 % in 2021 to 17.6 % in 2024.

On 31 October 2023, the African Development Bank Group had an active portfolio of 35 projects in Senegal, with commitments of EUR 2.1 billion.