USAID/Senegal: Partnership for People

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is the lead agency for the U.S. Government providing economic development and humanitarian assistance to people around the world. As an active partner of the Government and people of Senegal, USAID listens to local concerns and priorities, and then responds with joint activities to help reduce poverty, promote democracy and economic growth, recover from disasters, and prevent conflicts.

In Senegal, USAID has invested over $1 billion in a wide range of projects since 1961 -- an average of nearly $30 million each year -- to tackle constraints to national development.

USAID/Senegal: Economic Growth

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), with the Government of Senegal and its other partners, helps to create jobs and fight poverty in the country through increasing economic growth through trade and natural resource management. The 2006-2011, approximately $30 million economic growth program will demonstrate how more effective and accountable governance and sustainable exploitation of agricultural and natural resources can contribute significantly to increasing economic growth and reducing poverty. In particular, USAID supports increased trade in agriculture and natural products, public-private partnerships, biodiversity conservation, business development services to budding enterprises and national policies that encourage economic growth, trade, and the environment.

USAID/Senegal: Democracy and Governance

USAID and its partners encourage local governments and community-based organizations (CBOs) to use transparent financial management and investment planning for future development. Activities include technical assistance to local government and CBO leaders, information campaigns to raise awareness of citizen's rights and responsibilities regarding local government, and training to increase and enhance citizens' -- especially women's -- participation in local affairs.

As part of its six-year, $30 million assistance program for democracy and governance, USAID also provides policy analysis to strengthen decentralization policies in critical areas such as local government finance and management of civil registries. As a result, local communities are able to develop realistic budgets that help them plan investments and expenditure, collect increased tax revenues, run better solid waste and water services, and manage local agricultural and natural resources in ways that protect their environment and foster economic development.

USAID/Senegal: Health

Since 1979, USAID/Senegal’s health program has supported the Ministry of Health and local communities in efforts to reduce maternal and child deaths, prevent infectious disease and other illness, and help people live healthier lives. In addition to fighting major diseases like malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS, USAID strengthens national and local health systems that provide preventive and curative services for the population, supports family planning programs to allow couples to have children when they want them, and helps communities plan and finance their own health services. USAID’s health program, which focuses on the regions of Kaolack, Kolda, Louga, Thiès, and Ziguinchor, aims to put quality health services within easy reach of the majority of Senegal’s population.

USAID/Senegal: Education

USAID's program in education addresses constraints to increasing middle school enrollment and improving the quality of middle schools. USAID works to build schools, especially in rural areas, and improve the quality of the teaching and learning environment by launching nationwide training programs for teachers and principals in public and private middle schools. It also encourages community involvement by setting up school management committees and by helping local governments assume their responsibilities for supporting schools. By 2008, more than 25,000 children, half of them girls, who previously were unable to continue their education will be enrolled in middle schools close to home.

USAID/Senegal in the Casamance

After more than two decades of conflict, a peace process is gaining momentum in Senegal’s southern region, the Casamance. During the fighting between government and separatist forces of the Mouvement des Forces Démocratiques de la Casamance (MFDC), thousands of civilians have been displaced, villages have been destroyed, and fields rendered useless because of landmines. Since 2000, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has contributed over $15 million in activities to help stabilize the Casamance region. USAID works with the Senegalese government, the local population, village-based associations, and non-government organizations (NGOs) in activities designed to give people hope and reasons to opt for peace. USAID’s private sector, agriculture, natural resources management, local governance, health and education programs also actively intervene in areas of the Casamance.

USAID/Senegal: Agriculture and Natural Resources Management

Since January 2003, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has sought to improve lives and protect resources in southeastern Senegal in a new, unique program promoting conservation, poverty reduction and good governance (nature, wealth, and power). USAID assists local people in increasing their profits from natural products found in their local forests and farmland. To ensure that these natural products are not overly exploited, local government officials receive training to help them assume their responsibility for natural resource management.