Senegal

2022 saw progress in the imple­men­ta­tion of the pro­grammes in the fourth Indica­tive Coop­er­a­tion Pro­gramme (ICPIV, 2018 – 2023) between Lux­em­bourg and Sene­gal, which focus­es on two pri­or­i­ty sec­tors: (i) the health sec­tor, and specif­i­cal­ly strength­en­ing emer­gency med­ical assis­tance ser­vices, com­bat­ing non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases and improv­ing access to uni­ver­sal sick­ness cov­er­age, and (ii) the voca­tion­al train­ing and labour mar­ket inte­gra­tion sec­tor for young peo­ple, with a par­tic­u­lar focus on improv­ing access to and pro­vi­sion of train­ing as well as strength­en­ing the capac­i­ties of state actors. Lux­em­bourg con­tin­ued to act as lead part­ner of the tech­ni­cal voca­tion­al train­ing and labour mar­ket inte­gra­tion sub-group until June 2022. In order to make up for some delays in imple­men­ta­tion caused by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, the ICPIV has been extend­ed by one year until the end of 2023, and the finan­cial com­mit­ment has been increased by EUR13.3 mil­lion, result­ing in a total finan­cial enve­lope of almost EUR85 million.

In the health sec­tor, the year 2022 saw, among oth­er things, the pro­vi­sion of equip­ment in emer­gency and inten­sive care depart­ments, the oper­a­tional­i­sa­tion of the emer­gen­cies skills and care train­ing cen­tre using med­ical sim­u­la­tion in Dakar, that had been inau­gu­rat­ed in 2021, rais­ing of aware­ness among the pop­u­la­tion con­cern­ing non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases (e.g. car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­eases, type 2 dia­betes), the pro­fes­sion­al­i­sa­tion of the three mutu­al health insur­ance com­pa­nies in the cen­tral zone, and the rat­i­fi­ca­tion of the Strate­gic Emer­gency Man­age­ment Plan 2022 – 2026 and the Strate­gic Plan for the Devel­op­ment of the Uni­ver­sal Health Cov­er­age Agency 2022 – 2026.

In terms of voca­tion­al train­ing, the pro­gramme has made it pos­si­ble to devel­op access and improve the qual­i­ty of train­ing pro­vi­sion, to pro­vide sup­port for 1 692 young peo­ple to enter the labour mar­ket, to empow­er and strength­en the capac­i­ties of voca­tion­al train­ing cen­tres and sec­ondary schools, short-term train­ing (i.e. 3 to 9 months) lead­ing to qual­i­fi­ca­tions for 4 300 young peo­ple, and to deploy nine mobile train­ing units in which 2 600 young peo­ple have been trained.

A mid-term review of the ICPIV between Sene­gal and Lux­em­bourg was car­ried out by Lux­em­bourg in the first half of 2022. The results of this review not only high­light the lev­el of matu­ri­ty of devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion between the two coun­tries, but will also feed in to the think­ing about the next cycle of pro­gram­ming, ICP V, which will include inter­ven­tions that will be imple­ment­ed as ear­ly as 2024. The process of iden­ti­fy­ing this new ICP, led by the Embassy of the Grand Duchy of Lux­em­bourg in Dakar in close col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Sene­galese author­i­ties, was launched dur­ing an inau­gur­al work­shop held on 6 Decem­ber 2022 in Dakar. The ambi­tion for the years ahead will be to con­sol­i­date our devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion rela­tions through the ICP V, con­tin­u­ing our com­mit­ment in the health sec­tors, as well as in the sec­tor of voca­tion­al and tech­ni­cal train­ing. Lux­em­bourg plans to posi­tion itself in a third sec­tor, that of water and san­i­ta­tion, which will make it pos­si­ble to include more envi­ron­men­tal con­sid­er­a­tions with­in the next ICP.

Lux­em­bourg con­tin­ued to sup­port Sene­gal to com­bat the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic through new sup­port to the Insti­tut Pas­teur in Dakar, with a total bud­get of EUR1.2 mil­lion euros, cov­er­ing three sep­a­rate actions: (i) deploy­ment of 360000 rapid diag­nos­tic tests with­in the Sene­galese and West African mon­i­tor­ing sys­tem, (ii) organ­i­sa­tion of a course in ​“Genom­ic Alge­bra” applied to the analy­sis of COVID-19 genomes; (iii) pro­vi­sion of cold chain equip­ment to strength­en the sys­tem for col­lect­ing and stor­ing field samples.

Mul­ti­lat­er­al­ly, the Unit­ed Nations Pop­u­la­tion Fund (UNF­PA) con­tin­ued its activ­i­ties to strength­en the health and social pro­tec­tion sys­tem with a view to improv­ing access to high-qual­i­ty health­care. The Inter­na­tion­al Labour Office (ILO) has con­tin­ued to imple­ment its pro­gramme, designed to equip the voca­tion­al and tech­ni­cal train­ing sys­tem with appro­pri­ate human resources and to strength­en the train­ing of train­ers in entrepreneurship.

In 2022, ten Lux­em­bour­gish NGOs (ECPAT, Frères des Hommes, Guiden a Scouten fir eng Welt, Hand­i­cap Inter­na­tion­al Lux­em­bourg, PADEM, Phar­ma­ciens Sans Fron­tières, SANA, Chaîne de l’Espoir Lux­em­bourg, SOS Sahel and SOS Vil­lages d’Enfants Monde asbl) have imple­ment­ed 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.