Attachment J.3_CDCS-Senegal-August-2025.pdf

APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE

SEPTEMBER 21, 2020 – SEPTEMBER 20, 2025

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COUNTRY DEVELOPMENT

COOPERATION STRATEGY

(CDCS)

UNCLASSIFIED

ACRONYMS

AECID Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation

AFD French Development Agency

AfDB African Development Bank

AMELP Activity Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Plan

AMS Association of Mayors

AOR Agreement Officer’s Representative

CDCS Country Development Cooperation Strategy

CLM National Nutrition Committee

CLPA Local Artisanal Fishery Committees

COMEX Donor Group Executive Committee

COR Contracting Officer’s Representative

COSCE Collective of Civil Society Organizations for the Elections

C-TIP Counter-Trafficking in Persons

DFID U.K. Department for International Development

DO Development Objective

DOAG Development Objective Agreement

DRG Democracy, Rights, and Governance

EITI Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative

ESRP Economic and Social Resilience Program

EU European Union

FAO United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization

FDD Decentralization Endowment Fund

FONSIS Senegalese Sovereign Fund for Strategic Investments

FSN Foreign Service National

FY Fiscal Year

G15 Group of 15 Donor Organizations

G2G Government-to-Government

GBV Gender-Based Violence

GDP Gross Domestic Product

GIZ German Society for International Cooperation

GoLD USAID/Senegal Governance for Local Development Activity

GOS Government of Senegal

HIV Human Immunodeficiency Virus

ICRISAT International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics

ICS Integrated Country Strategy

ICT Information and Communication Technology

IFAD International Fund for Agriculture Development

INR U.S. State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research

IR Intermediate Result

JICA Japan International Cooperation Agency

JSP Joint Strategic Plan

KfW German Development Bank

KOICA Korea International Cooperation Agency

LuxDev Luxemburg Agency for Development Cooperation

MEL Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning

MOHEBS Harmonized Model for Bilingual Education in Senegal

NPI New Partnership Initiative

NSS National Security Strategy

NUP New and Underutilized Partners

OSIWA Open Society Initiative for West Africa

Oxfam Oxford Committee for Famine Relief

PAQUET Quality, Fairness and Transparency Improvement Program

PASEC Educational Systems Analysis Program of the Francophonie member States and Governments Conference of Ministers of Education

PITT Performance Indicator Tracking Table

PAP Plan d’Actions Prioritaires

PSE Plan Senegal Emergent

PMP Performance Management Plan

PMELP Project Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Plan

PSC Personal Services Contractor

QRR Quarterly Results Review

RAP Annual Performance Report

READ Reinforcing Education Accountability in Development

SBU Sensitive But Unclassified

SRO Sahel Regional Office

TCN Third Country National

UMS Union of Magistrates of Senegal

UNCDF United Nations Capital Development Fund

UNDP United Nations Development Programme

UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization

UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund

UNFPA United Nations Population Fund

USDH U.S. Direct-Hire

USG U.S. Government

WASH Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene

WFP

WIC

World Food Programme

Women’s Investment Club

WHO World Health Organization

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

II. COUNTRY CONTEXT 10

III. STRATEGIC APPROACH 16

IV. RESULTS FRAMEWORK 19

A. Goal Statement and Narrative 19

B. DO 1: Increased Inclusive and Sustainable Economic Growth 20

C. DO 2: Improved Human Capital 27

D. DO 3: Increased GOS Effectiveness and Accountability 33

V. MONITORING, EVALUATION, AND LEARNING (MEL) 38

VI. REQUIRED ANNEX 42

FY 2020 Journey to Self-Reliance Country Roadmap 42

I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

CDCS Goal

USAID’s goal for the Senegal 2020-2025 Country Development Cooperation Strategy (CDCS) is for Senegal to be better able to plan and finance inclusive development by: implementing key reforms;

actively engaging with a strengthened private sector and a vibrant civil society; and harnessing the potential of women and youth.

USAID will support Senegal on its journey to self-reliance through activities that increase inclusive, sustainable economic growth; improve Senegal’s human capital; and increase the effectiveness of the Government of Senegal (GOS) and its accountability to the Senegalese people. The CDCS aligns with the ambitious goals of the GOS’ national development plan the Plan Sénégal Emergent, with each proposed Development Objective (DO) matching a corresponding Plan “pillar.” Activities under the CDCS will additionally be aligned to Senegal’s five-year Priority Action Plans, with the current year Phase II Action Plan (PAP 2A) to take into account the damage incurred to the local economy by the COVID-19 pandemic. The CDCS also aligns with broader U.S. Government (USG) priorities as outlined in the Embassy Dakar Integrated Country Strategy, National Security Strategy (NSS), and Department of State-USAID Joint Strategic Plan (JSP) / Joint Regional Strategy for Africa. This is especially important given Senegal’s role as a strong and stable ally in a restive region, with growing instability in nearby and neighboring countries, including increasing violence in Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso and political unrest in Guinea-Bissau.

Over the next five years, USAID expects to achieve the following: increased engagement with the private sector to find market-based solutions to development challenges, where appropriate;

empowerment of women and the country’s growing youth population through activities increasing economic opportunities and participation in decision-making; and strengthened civil society organizations that are better equipped to advocate for positive change. Furthermore, the CDCS will help advance a prosperous, secure, inclusive and democratic Senegal by addressing three major gender and social inclusion issues: women’s declining economic opportunities relative to men’s; gender-based violence (GBV); and gender integration gaps in public policies, budgets, and institutions. Addressing these gender and social inclusion issues requires addressing the factors of poverty, rural or peri-urban location, and in some instances, ethnic group membership that affect the severity of gender gaps and social exclusion. In addition, poor rural and peri-urban men, youth, and people with disabilities experience unequal access to development opportunities, and therefore need to be included in USAID programming under this CDCS.

Senegal Country Roadmap

The CDCS responds to challenges and opportunities highlighted in the Senegal Country Roadmap and other analyses. While Senegal’s Roadmap describes relatively high levels of commitment, weak performance on the business environment metric underlines the importance of strengthening the private sector and promoting the rule of law. In addition, a below-average score with respect to the economic gender gap highlights the need in the new strategy for USAID to focus on increasing the meaningful participation of women in the economy. This means addressing gender and social inclusion priorities at a Mission-wide and country level by increasing women’s economic empowerment, strengthening GBV services and implementation of anti-GBV policies and action plans, and coordinating with relevant GOS entities to address barriers to gender equality and social inclusion.

With respect to capacity, Roadmap findings indicate a need for USAID to support the GOS to reduce poverty and better plan and finance effective public services, particularly in areas such as health, education, agriculture, and the environment. These findings align with the Mission’s assessment, particularly when taking into account persistent challenges within the business environment, insufficient and unequal job creation, and disparities in health and education outcomes.

Because the Roadmap score on civil society effectiveness does not fully reflect the reality on the ground, USAID has relied on additional data - such as the Democracy, Governance, and Human Rights Assessment carried out in 2019 – which shows that real progress on self-reliance and inclusive development cannot be made without stronger citizen engagement and increased support across sectors promoting good governance and transparency. Concerns about transparency have become even more pronounced since the outbreak of COVID-19, since citizen inclusion in the oversight of COVID-19 response funding will be essential.

The CDCS incorporates the Roadmap assessment by building on Senegal’s relatively strong commitment to its development. The goal puts the USAID-GOS relationship front and center by supporting the public sector to more effectively carry out stewardship and service delivery roles to develop capacity in education, health, agriculture, and environment sectors, and to reduce regional, social, and gender-based disparities. It also addresses key constraints to inclusive economic growth identified in the Roadmap by working with public and private partners to improve the business climate, reduce red tape, increase access to credit, including for women-led enterprises, create opportunities for investment, and bolster infrastructure and value chains. In addition, the CDCS framework elevates support for civil society and other partners to promote transparency, good governance, and citizen engagement. It also fosters collaboration between the government, other partners, and the Senegalese people to bolster democratic institutions.

Strategic Choices

To achieve the CDCS goal, USAID will ask more from its partnership with the GOS and from itself, which will require changes to how USAID does business. USAID will operationalize its “Journey to Self-Reliance” vision in Senegal by requiring greater co-financing and more targeted policy commitments (including a greater emphasis on gender and social inclusion) from GOS partners than in years past. USAID will select assistance agreements that can play a more strategic role in advancing policy commitments made by the Senegalese government that are essential for achievement of USAID’s goal and objectives. In addition, USAID is seeking agreement on multi-year government cash contributions in its new bilateral agreements. The USAID Mission is considering various modalities to communicate mutual commitment, such as conditionality and matching funds requirements at the activity level. These efforts will mobilize more domestic resources for shared development priorities, which is key to self-reliance.

This CDCS reflects the strategic choice to consider market-based approaches and private investment as USAID’s default approach when developing solutions. Also, USAID is committed to generating better solutions to complex problems by incorporating politically aware and multi-sectoral approaches that deliberately plan for and adapt to political realities.

Programming under the new CDCS aligns with Pillars II and IV of the National Security Strategy, all four goals of the USAID/Department of State Joint Strategic Plan, Goals 2, 3, and 4 of the Joint Regional Strategy for Africa, and USAID’s Policy Framework. USAID will advance country progress by redefining the relationship with the GOS, for example, by increasing the size of the existing Government-to-Government (G2G) portfolio, which will be accompanied by requests for the GOS to increase the level of host-country contributions for these awards. USAID will also use Development Objective Assistance Agreements and Implementation Letters more effectively to leverage greater policy commitments. In addition, USAID will invest for impact by supporting increased GOS financial self-reliance through, for example, a new planned Public Financial Management and Public Accountability activity that will improve tax collection, increase budget transparency, and boost local government and private sector investment in social services. Finally, USAID will sustain results through increased engagement with the private sector, by diversifying the implementing partner base wherever possible in support of USAID’s New Partnerships Initiative, and by strengthening local institutions wherever possible.

Over the last five years, Senegal has achieved progress in fiscal transparency, notably, with respect to dissemination of budget documentation, as well as an enhanced role of the National Assembly on budget oversight. However, Senegal’s score in the 2019 Open Budget Index decreased from 51 out of 100 in 2017 to 46 out of 100 in 2019, indicating that key budgetary documents were not made public on time. Also, the public participation score decreased to 0 out of 100 compared to 2 out of 100 in 2017.

Results Framework

The CDCS Framework, showing the DOs and Intermediate Results (IRs) of this strategy, is included below:

II. COUNTRY CONTEXT

Challenges and Opportunities

The GOS has placed the goal of reaching “emerging market” status by 2035 at the heart of the Plan Sénégal Emergent. This presents both challenges and opportunities for the GOS, the people of Senegal, the private sector, civil society, and the development community.

After decades of lackluster or erratic economic growth, Senegal entered into a phase of high growth in 2014. In 2018, it cleared the World Bank’s threshold to be classified as a lower-middle income country. Between 2013 and 2019 Senegal achieved a real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate of 6.4 percent per year and 6.6 percent in agriculture, which employs 30 percent of the labor force.

Continued growth in the agriculture and food sector, including agro-processing, has the potential to underpin sustained growth, potentially with contributions from recently discovered oil and gas reserves.

However, a combination of social, political, economic, and environmental challenges to inclusive and sustained development remain. Economic growth is constrained by a poor business environment, weak tax collection, a political system built on patronage favoring large interest groups at the expense of vulnerable groups, such as women and youth, and the degradation of the natural resource base, including reduced land fertility, overfishing, deforestation, and poaching. The degradation of natural resources has led to increased competition for access to water and increasing conflicts between farmers and herders. For women in rural areas, this degradation of the resource base increases the burden of domestic tasks, such as collecting water and firewood. Current GOS policies do not incentivize wealth creation, entrepreneurship, and investment, and they also limit equal access to opportunities, particularly for women, youth and people with disabilities, who face significant social, economic, and geographic barriers. There are limited opportunities for mid-sized companies ($500,000-$500 million) to generate employment and inclusive growth. Senegal has the highest electricity prices in West Africa (although a $550 million second Millennium Challenge Corporation Compact will work to change that by reforming and strengthening Senegal’s electric power sector). Finally, a cash economy, with as much as 90 percent of payments made in cash, contributes little to Senegal’s national coffers.

Biodiversity and environmental factors are also influencing the current context. As noted in Senegal’s 118/119 Tropical Forests and Biodiversity Analysis, while agriculture is a driver of growth in the Plan Sénégal Emergent, its expansion to forest zones, due to low productivity and the migration of population from the traditional peanut basin in the center of the country to the Southeast, are among the biggest threats to biodiversity. Nearly three quarters of agriculture production is rain-fed, making it extremely vulnerable to climate change and resulting in considerable food insecurity for small holders who constitute the majority of farmers in Senegal. The effects of climate change, accelerated by unsustainable natural resource management practices, result in coastal erosion, reduced land fertility, deforestation, widespread salinization – including soil salinization that negatively impacts rice farming – and the loss of many valuable species in the fishing sector.

Social forces are also influencing Senegal’s development. Women are particularly disadvantaged, especially in rural areas, where conservative cultures perpetuate pervasive discrimination in relation to education, inheritance, access to land and financing, and reproductive rights. The Plan Sénégal Emergent prioritizes sectors for growth employing predominantly men, such as agribusiness, infrastructure, oil and gas, and information technology, a strategy that risks further widening an economic gender gap already exacerbated by poverty and discrimination.

Senegal’s demographics also present a mixed bag, with a growing urban population, huge youth bulge, and sharp divide between rich and poor. Despite strong economic growth, poverty reduction and job creation has been limited, with 2019 World Bank poverty projections indicating that a third of the population is still living on less than $1.90 a day. More than half of the population is expected to live in cities by 2030, up from a quarter in 1960. More than two thirds of the population is under the age of

29. While the urban population is growing at 3.7 percent per annum, nearly a full percentage point faster than total population growth, some of the fastest growing cities are secondary cities such as Touba, Kaolack, and Tambacounda. Despite growth in numbers, Dakar, the coastal capital and only city with a population greater than one million, has seen its share of total population decline since 2005.

The GOS has made human capital development a central pillar of the current phase of the Plan Sénégal Emergent, with considerable investment in education, health, and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH), but it is lagging behind similar countries and there are large geographic disparities.

Despite having one of the highest levels of education expenditure relative to comparator countries, literacy, secondary school enrollment, and the average number of years of education in Senegal is low.

A third of children aged 6-16 are not in school, with three quarters of them having never attended.

Access to education varies considerably between rural and urban areas. Senegal has achieved significant results in reducing child mortality: between 1997 and 2018, under-five child mortality decreased from 139 to 51 per 1,000 live births (Demographic Health Survey 2018). However, disaggregation of the data reveals a more challenging situation: success is uneven, with substantial disparities in terms of geographic area, age and gender, and public health expenditures are far below what the GOS has promised. In addition, rates of early and forced child marriage and female genital mutilation remain high—for instance, the prevalence of child marriage is 31 percent before age 18.

Senegal is politically stable, but gains made since the 2012 election of President Macky Sall seem increasingly fragile. Strong legal and policy frameworks exist but are not effective due to weak implementation and limited accountability, and there is an increasing concentration of power in the Executive Branch. Decentralization is not being efficiently implemented, with insufficient transfer of resources and weak regional leadership. Traditional religious leaders wield considerable political clout. Civil society largely lacks the technical capacity and leadership to constructively engage with the GOS and provide oversight. Media generally has broad freedom, however, media outlets usually have a strong bias toward a particular political view and there is little independent coverage of major events. LGBTI citizens are socially marginalized and not protected under the law.

Finally, the risk of violent extremism and a still-simmering, low level conflict in the southern Casamance region continue to be of concern. Senegal has benefitted from ongoing support from the U.S. and other countries to help it build and maintain a strong and stable military. The U.S. has also worked to develop Senegal’s counter-terrorism capabilities, including a new training facility in the city of Thies. However, growing instability in nearby and neighboring countries, including increasing violence in Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso, and political unrest in Guinea-Bissau, are reminders of Senegal’s precarious position in a troubled region, and underscore its importance as a strong, stable U.S. ally.

COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the challenges facing Senegal. The Minister of Economy has predicted a 2.8 percent reduction in Senegal's GDP in 2020, reflecting an overall decline in economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa. The GOS expects exports to decrease by 16 percent compared to an upward trend of 9 percent in 2019, and imports to fall by 18 percent compared to a 6 percent increase in 2019. Remittances, which represent 10 percent of GDP, are expected to decrease by 30 percent due to the lockdown and resulting downturn of the economy in European Union countries, particularly France, Italy, and Spain, where the majority of the Senegalese diaspora live.

Fisheries, trade, construction, tourism, and transport sectors are expected to be hardest hit.

Consequently, an estimated one million households throughout the country, the majority of which rely on remittances, will no longer have the means to secure food and absorb health, education, and rental costs. Compounding this, COVID-19 has been shown to have a disproportionate impact on women-led businesses, owing to an already uneven childcare burden and unequal access to digital technology.

The GOS has developed a comprehensive response plan, including an economic and social resilience program (ESRP) focusing on strengthening the health system; reinforcing community resilience;

supporting the private sector; and maintaining jobs. It has introduced a series of policy measures to accompany the ESRP. This includes implementing an aggressive information and awareness-raising campaign to slow the spread of the coronavirus by promoting handwashing, social distancing, and isolation or quarantine, using public, private and community radios and televisions. To date, much of Senegal’s success in addressing COVID-19 lies with the strong consensus that the GOS has forged with religious and political leaders and other social actors.

The GOS’ response to COVID-19 that was primarily focused on Dakar has expanded to cover other regions, resulting in 35 treatment centers operating throughout the country. Community-based responses, which are Senegal’s strongest weapon, need stronger and continuous support. The GOS decision to lift restrictive measures earlier than expected – including a ban on travel between regions, a curfew, and the closure of places of worship – weakened community-based responses. The decision to re-open mosques and churches was controversial, with a number of religious leaders, both Muslim and Christian, opposing the move. GOS efforts to contain the coronavirus have been hampered by the majority of the population not respecting social distancing and mask wearing; a growing number of strikes against a perceived lack of transparency in the execution of the ESRP; and the poor quality of basic services, such as recurrent water shortages in Dakar and other cities.

COVID-19 has slowed the implementation of the Phase II of the Plan Sénégal Emergent. Substantial resources have been shifted toward the emergency objectives laid out in the ESRP and new priorities to address the impacts of the pandemic and restart the economy. Building on the Priority Action Plan for the Phase II (PAP 2) of the PSE, the GOS has developed a new Adjusted and Accelerated Priority Action Plan (PAP 2A) that “adapts and accelerates Senegal’s response to COVID-19. The new PAP 2A focuses on increasing funding in the health, food, and agriculture sectors and enlarging the scope of digitalization as a key reform, not only for public administration procedures, but also for education (online public school education has been implemented on a large scale for the first time). The PAP 2A focuses also on the industrialization of the economy. Similarly, the consensus built with religious, community, and union leaders will serve as a strong foundation for accelerating the implementation reforms that support the PAP 2A. Finally, the reimbursement of the domestic debt and support to enterprises lays the groundwork for a more robust post-COVID-19 private sector.

GOS Vision

The Plan Sénégal Emergent has three main pillars: 1) structural transformation of the economy to promote inclusive growth by increasing productivity (particularly in agriculture), access to finance, and infrastructure; 2) increased human capital by improving access to and the quality of health and education, including vocational training; and 3) promotion of governance, peace, and security by bolstering ongoing GOS decentralization reforms and improving government effectiveness at all levels. The Plan seeks to diversify the Senegalese economy by focusing on priority sectors, such as agriculture, infrastructure, services, energy, mining, and science and technology, with the recently launched Phase II focusing on invigorating the private sector. The GOS will address the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and re-start the economy through the PAP 2A.

Donor Coordination

As a result of 2018 USAID-led reforms, donor coordination mechanisms in Senegal have become stronger. The donor coordination structure includes two new executive bodies: an Executive Committee (COMEX) consisting of five Ambassador or equivalent-level representatives; and a “Group of 15” (G15) representing 15 bilateral and multilateral donors selected on a rotational basis. These structures are supported by 17 sector or thematic working groups. The USG remains a leader in the donor community in Senegal; the U.S. Ambassador and USAID Mission Director participate in the COMEX and G15, respectively, and USAID chairs or co-chairs five of the 17 sector-level donor working groups. The recent modification of the donor coordination structure has increased the ability of donors to advocate and speak with a unified voice, and has improved donor-GOS dialogue at the strategic, sector-specific, and operational levels. Under this CDCS, USAID will continue to use the COMEX, G15, and donor working groups to advance policy objectives and build upon almost 60 years of successful United States-Senegal engagement to advance a model of bilateral cooperation emphasizing shared ownership and transparency.

Country Roadmap

The CDCS responds to challenges and opportunities highlighted in the FY 2020 Senegal Country Roadmap. Roadmap findings on government effectiveness, combined with a less than stellar performance on citizen capacity metrics, indicate a need for USAID to support the GOS to better plan and finance effective public services, particularly in areas such as health, education, agriculture, and the environment. In addition, weak performance on economic and business environment metrics have informed USAID’s focus on strengthening the private sector. Furthermore, because the metric on civil society does not fully reflect the reality on the ground, USAID has collected additional data (such as the Democracy, Governance and Human Rights Assessment carried out in 2019) and determined that real progress on self-reliance and inclusive development cannot be made without stronger citizen engagement, and increased support across sectors promoting good governance and transparency.

Senegal has demonstrated a high level of commitment and a low level of capacity compared to other countries. Its greatest strength in terms of commitment is in the area of liberal democracy. Its greatest challenges, in terms of commitment, are the economic gender gap and the business environment. The 2019 CDCS gender analysis supports the Country Roadmap by showing that the benefits of growth skew to males over females and that people with disabilities are the most economically disadvantaged.

Senegal’s rising overall unemployment is due to increased unemployment among women. Women’s unemployment rates rose from 7 percent in 2017 to 7.6 percent in 2019, while men’s unemployment fell from 6.1 percent to 5.8 percent during the same period.

In terms of capacity, Senegal’s greatest strengths are safety and security, due to a long tradition of social and political stability. However, ineffective government, inefficient tax administration, and the poor quality of education remain challenges constraining economic growth and wealth creation, leading to persistent poverty.

A few areas that do not resonate in the Country Roadmap and where additional data are useful for presenting a more complete picture include:

1) On the Commitment Assessment, Senegal’s position on Biodiversity is well above average.

However, this is not consistent with current deforestation and illegal fishing practices. For example, Environmental Performance Index data demonstrate a large forest decrease. They do show a slight improvement in fisheries, but illegal fishing remains a critical problem.

2) Also related to Commitment, Senegal’s position on Social Group Equality is well above average. However, this does not take into account the acute urban/rural and regional disparities in Senegal, and marginalization of certain groups, such as LGBTI.

3) On Capacity, Senegal’s position on Child Health falls below average, but does not reflect rural and urban health disparities, especially infant mortality rates.

4) And while Senegal’s position on Civil Society and Media Effectiveness reflects the broad freedom the media has in Senegal, it hides the fact that the media is highly polarized and perceived as biased by the public, and freedom of expression is constrained by the political and, in some cases, economic interests of media owners who also serve in the legislature.

Country Transition Planning

USAID does not anticipate that Senegal will move away from foreign assistance in the near- or medium-term. However, this CDCS will lay the groundwork for the longer-term goal of Senegal transitioning from a recipient of assistance to an enduring diplomatic, economic, and security partner.

Senegal’s “graduation” from foreign assistance can only occur by consistently incorporating sustainability and self-reliance in development assistance programs. This CDCS has been developed with those goals in mind, by building self-reliance at every opportunity, whether through activities with the GOS, the private sector, or civil society partners. USAID will redefine the relationship with the GOS by looking for more commitment on policy reforms and cost-sharing for G2G awards.

Activities promoting financing self-reliance will help Senegal increase its revenue base to be better able to deliver services and finance solutions to its own development challenges. And by strengthening engagement with the private sector and promoting improvements in the business environment, USAID will promote a diversified economy and the increased trade capacity of Senegalese firms. Underpinning these efforts to promote Senegal’s transition away from foreign assistance is USAID’s commitment to manage foreign assistance funding responsibly, which means ensuring that U.S. taxpayer resources achieve the maximum impact and that Senegal is held accountable in demonstrating tangible commitment to shared bilateral objectives.

Moreover, USAID recognizes that country transition planning also means planning USAID’s own transition on how it delivers foreign assistance and finding new methods of partnership that foster

Senegal’s willingness to fund its own development; especially in sectors whose funding the government habitually cedes to donors. During the life of this CDCS, USAID will pursue a dialogue and test new partnership arrangements with the GOS that will demonstrate a clear path toward self-reliance and an evolved relationship from donor recipient to a partnership for growth.

III. STRATEGIC APPROACH

Bilateral Relationship

Over the years, USAID has forged good working relationships and high-level partnerships with the GOS, which has proven to be a good development partner. The Mission will leverage USAID’s long history of working hand-in-hand with the Senegalese people, from the central government down to the village level. Senegal is doing well compared to a lot of its neighbors. It is an important strategic partner in a tough neighborhood, and effective development support will help keep it strong and stable.

USAID is well-placed to try new approaches that will deepen development relationships with the GOS.

For instance, the Mission will reformulate development objective agreements (DOAGs) to include policy commitments that are key to the success of shared development objectives. These agreements will encourage an active participation of the GOS in steering and monitoring USAID’s portfolio to reinforce mutual accountability. Also, USAID will increase the use of G2Gs to scale up proven interventions, combined with technical expertise to build GOS capacity to assume increased responsibility for planning, financing, and implementing proven solutions. In G2G, the Mission will use joint risk mitigation plans developed with sector ministries and the implementation letters as instruments to require an increasing proportion of cash contributions from the GOS at both central and decentralized levels, and to advance policy dialogue on reforms and measures, such as addressing gaps in human resources, particularly in social sectors (e.g., education, health, WASH) and coordination within and among government ministries.

Use of Host Country Resources

USAID is approaching this challenge from both the supply and demand sides. On the supply side, the Mission will strengthen GOS commitments by restructuring DOAGs to incentivize reforms, integrating financing self-reliance into GOS forward planning, and pushing for greater host country contributions.

USAID will also enable greater private enterprise investment by working to improve the business environment and rolling out mechanisms designed to bolster investment. On the demand side, USAID will continue to build capacity and work with GOS counterparts to improve policy implementation and service delivery across the strategy. This includes ensuring the availability of financing as well as promoting budget execution. USAID will continue to push for real decentralization to support sustainable, grass roots development. And it will improve civil society’s ability to hold the GOS accountable to deliver public goods and services and attract investments required for self-reliance, emphasizing the role played by women and youth. As a result, USAID expects that the GOS will measurably increase its financial commitments and budget execution for development, which will decrease GOS dependence on USAID and other donors.

Private Sector Engagement

USAID is putting private sector engagement at the heart of this CDCS. This includes engaging the private sector as a strategic actor and financier in Senegal’s development, rather than a beneficiary or implementing partner. The Mission is shifting its role from primarily that of a funder of private sector development to a more robust role as a broker, advocate, convener, and investment catalyst. To accomplish this, the Mission will continue to cultivate relationships with key private sector actors to achieve more sustainable and scalable impact. The Mission will act early, seeking first to understand the drivers and constraints, and the goals and limitations of what businesses, investors and entrepreneurs want to bring to the table, rather than imposing rigid, preconceived ideas. The Mission will continue to proactively seek input through workshops, roundtables, and other events, and to work in tandem with other U.S. Government agencies and related entities, such as the American Chamber of Commerce. As a result, USAID expects the private sector to be able to increasingly step up so USAID can step back, resulting in more enterprise-driven and sustainable development in Senegal.

Civil Society / Citizen Engagement

The Mission will ensure that Senegal’s civil society is robust, and its citizens are informed and engaged. This includes not only pushing for good and transparent governance, but also ensuring that human capital investments result in healthier and better educated people able to join the workforce and contribute to Senegal’s future. With worrying trends toward the centralization of power, rather than decentralization, civil society and citizen engagement, including women, youth, and people with disabilities, will be crucial for ensuring the GOS adheres to its strategic plan. Similarly, with slow or no implementation of current policies governing the mining, oil and gas sectors, especially in light of significant recent discoveries, citizens must be able to constructively engage with the GOS and provide proper oversight to ensure revenues coming on line over the next few years are distributed fairly. For instance, USAID will help civil society partners and build alliances with national institutions to propose policy reforms and cultivate strategic thinking to orient decision makers. Finally, by promoting systems for free, peaceful, inclusive, and transparent election processes, USAID will help Senegal maintain its commendable democratic traditions that have made it a strong, stable, and dependable ally of the U.S. for more than half a century. Strengthening civil society organizations to effectively engage the public, and to work constructively with the GOS will ensure greater accountability to deliver effective essential services across Senegal. Communities will have better services, greater social mobility, more ways to exercise their rights, and Senegal will be better equipped to plan, finance, and implement its own development solutions.

Other U.S. Government Actors

USAID is one of 22 agencies represented at U.S. Embassy Dakar. USAID’s activities under this strategy will fully align with the Embassy Dakar Integrated Country Strategy (ICS), which was most recently revised in early 2020. The goals of the ICS are to increase U.S. and Senegalese security and prosperity; strengthen democratic values, human rights, and good governance; and promote development through health and education. USAID works closely with many interagency partners (e.g., Department of State, Department of Defense, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Peace Corps, Millennium Challenge Corporation, U.S. Department of Agriculture, etc.) and will continue to do so under the new CDCS. USAID will continue to participate in the numerous interagency working groups to ensure that activities are coordinated and complementary. In particular, USAID will make sure activities under the CDCS are well-coordinated with the Millennium Challenge Corporation’s $550 million Senegal Power Compact, which during the life of this CDCS will work to strengthen the power sector in addressing constraints to economic growth.

Religious Freedom

Senegal is not listed as a Tier 1 or Tier 2 country of concern or in need of monitoring according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Senegal's constitution provides for the free practice of religious beliefs and self-governance by religious groups without government interference though by law; all faith-based organizations must register and acquire legal status as an association, and the government continues to monitor religious groups to ensure they operate according to the terms of their registration. Faith-based communities, organizations and religious leaders are important stakeholders in supporting Senegal's efforts toward self-reliance, as outlined in more detail throughout this strategy.

Changes from Previous Strategy

To effectively support Senegal to become more self-reliant, USAID will make changes in both programming and in terms of the way the Mission does business, as outlined in the table that follows.

For example, in contrast to the previous strategy, USAID will shift from simply developing the private sector to truly engaging the private sector as development partners. In addition, this CDCS is based on an evolution of the USAID - GOS relationship that demonstrates greater GOS commitment, such as through increased GOS cash contributions and targeted policy commitments in bilateral agreements, and the use of conditionality and matching funds requirements in health G2G mechanisms.

Furthermore, USAID will better integrate financing self-reliance across the portfolio, by both strengthening GOS financial systems and enabling greater private enterprise investment, and by improving civil society’s ability to hold the GOS accountable to deliver public goods and attract investments required for self-reliance.

These programmatic changes will be accompanied by a change in how the Mission does business.

Achieving the objectives of this strategy will require a shift in mindset for USAID staff; a shift that makes market-based approaches and private investment the default consideration when developing solutions, and a commitment to generating better solutions to complex problems by incorporating politically aware approaches and developing integrated programming that deliberately plan for, and adapt to, political realities. As USAID deepens its partnership with Senegal, the Mission will ensure that staff are well-equipped to engage GOS partners and the private sector more meaningfully, making each interaction count. These shifts will be made without sacrificing the ability to actively manage the performance of USAID mechanisms.

The table below provides further details on how this CDCS differs from the previous strategy and the strategic choices the Mission is making to narrow its focus.

Table 3.1: What will change in the new CDCS?

What will change? Why is it changing? How will it change?

External:

Deepen USAID’s partnership with Senegal

Advance tax administration reform

Mobilize resources and improve business environment Targeted technical assistance

Improve public financial management

Greater efficiencies = greater outcomes and self-reliance

Cross-sectoral programming working at local and central levels

Ask more from the USAID-GOS partnership

Buy-in advances sustainability and mobilizes GOS resources

Greater dialogue at CDCS and DOAG development stage

Internal:

Change how USAID does business

Increase integrated programming Best way to address complexity Various modalities

Incorporate more Private Sector Engagement at concept stage

Mobilize resources and harness power of markets

Adapt internal processes, build Mission capacity

Think more politically Programming better adapted to political realities more effective and sustainable

Deeper understanding of systems, drivers, change agents

IV. RESULTS FRAMEWORK

A. Goal Statement and Narrative

USAID’s goal is that in five years, Senegal will be better able to plan and finance inclusive development by: implementing key reforms; actively engaging with a strengthened private sector and a vibrant civil society; and harnessing the potential of women and youth. USAID will support Senegal on its own journey to self-reliance through inclusive, sustainable economic growth;

improved human capital; and greater effectiveness of the GOS and its accountability to the Senegalese population. The CDCS aligns with the ambitious goals of the Plan Sénégal Emergent, with each proposed DO matching a corresponding Plan “pillar.” In all DOs, USAID will: increase engagement with the private sector to find market-based solutions to development challenges, where appropriate;

empower women and the country’s growing youth population through activities increasing economic opportunities and participation in decision-making; and strengthen civil society organizations so that they are better equipped to advocate for positive change.

The CDCS aims to increase sustainable and scalable economic opportunities for women and youth, while at the same time addressing social drivers that have been creating impediments. For example, the strategy supports the implementation of Senegal’s existing laws and policies on GBV, including the 2019 law on rape and pedophilia, the 2017-2021 multisectoral action plan on GBV focusing on service delivery at the local level, and the new five-year (2020-2025) national action plan on women, peace, and security that addresses GBV in conflict and crisis prone areas and seeks to increase women’s leadership in peace processes. The CDCS also aims to bolster women’s economic and political empowerment by reversing the declining trend of economic opportunities for women entrepreneurs and addressing gender integration gaps in public policies, budgets, and institutions.

B. DEVELOPMENT OBJECTIVE (DO) 1: Increased Inclusive and Sustainable Economic Growth

Results Statement and Narrative

USAID aims to support Senegal so it can better plan, finance, and implement solutions to its development challenges. A fundamental component of this effort is increased inclusive economic growth. The development hypothesis is that IF the GOS commits to support a business climate that is conducive to job creation and increased incomes from private sector trade and investment, IF the GOS implements effective policies and oversight bodies to ensure the natural resources base is well managed, and IF resilience, nutrition, and food and water security of targeted populations are improved, THEN the resulting increase in economic growth in targeted sectors will be more inclusive of vulnerable populations and contribute to sustainable development outcomes. USAID recognizes that while Senegal has recently experienced strong economic growth, to foster more inclusive, sustained growth, the Agency must strengthen government systems to implement a structural transformation of the economy toward the private sector.

Agriculture has been a driver of inclusive growth in recent years, and remains an important driver of growth and poverty reduction. Emerging agro-processing and food industries have the potential to generate significant employment opportunities. In an economy deeply dependent on natural resources, productive resources, such as fish stocks, land, and forestry must be well-managed to generate private sector investment, job creation, increased incomes, and food and water security. Finally, to cope with shocks like the coronavirus pandemic, as well as sustain the natural resource base, there must be a strong focus on resilience as well as nutrition, food and water security. Increased economic growth and inclusivity will contribute, alongside the two other DOs, toward increasing GOS financial resources and management capacity to independently support its own development.

Senegal’s high rural poverty and malnutrition rates are a result of the low profitability of the country’s agricultural sector, exacerbated by climate risks, pressures on natural resources, and limited opportunities for women and youth. And while Senegal has seen strong economic growth in recent years due to Plan Sénégal Emergent-related reforms, public investments in infrastructure and energy, and improved local product competitiveness, particularly in agriculture, significant challenges to inclusive growth remain, including a challenging business environment. In addition, approximately 70 percent of Senegal’s 16 million people are under the age of 30, and many of these young people remain disconnected from the mainstream of economic life; with rural youth (particularly young women) especially disadvantaged due to lower literacy rates, early marriage and GBV, and limited job opportunities outside the agriculture sector. Furthermore, an estimated 17 percent of rural households experienced severe to moderate food insecurity in 2019, and more than half of these households were poor. Among children under five, 17 percent are stunted, with stunting twice as prevalent in rural areas.

Adding to these challenges are climate stressors and unsustainable natural resource management practices affecting livelihoods and increasing food insecurity. These include the extension of agriculture into protected areas, illegal cutting of trees for construction, forage, and other domestic uses, and overgrazing. In addition, illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing remains an issue, fish licensing processes remain opaque, and clandestine international trawlers continue to operate within Senegal’s Exclusive Economic Zone, threatening small-scale fisheries livelihoods. The effects of all these stressors are seen in an increased frequency of droughts and floods, the loss of important forest reserves, unabated pressure on fisheries, and coastal erosion.

Furthermore, an additional constraint is the worsening gender gap in economic opportunity. Prior to COVID-19, Senegal’s economy had been growing at approximately 6 percent per year, with men benefiting relatively more from this growth than women. Agriculture provides a quarter of women’s employment, but occupational gender differences, unemployment, significant levels of informal employment in agriculture, petty trade and services, women’s unpaid household care, and the gaps in the legal framework are all indications of women’s relative economic disempowerment. And since more than three quarters of Senegalese women report experiencing GBV during their lifetime, ensuring women’s voices are included using an approach that addresses GBV in the agricultural, nutrition, and food policy system is essential.

DO 1 will address key constraints to inclusive economic growth, including improving the business climate, increasing access to credit, and strengthening value chains. DO 1 seeks to encourage Senegal’s Journey to Self-Reliance by closely aligning with the Plan Sénégal Emergent, which aims to transform the Senegalese economy by…