The World Bank's Board of Executive Directors approved on Friday a USD 125 million financing to support Senegal to improve the competitiveness of selected value chains, Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprise (MSME) capabilities, and private sector investment in the country.

According to Amadou Hott, Minister of the Economy, Planning & Cooperation, this project aims at supporting Senegal's resilient economic recovery from COVID-19 by operationalizing the Jobs and Economic Transformation (JET) agenda. “Senegal has recently faced several challenges brought by the COVID crisis. In this context, this project supports the creation of more and better jobs by improving private sector's competitiveness and productivity, access to long term finance and investment, and more sustainable infrastructure", said Nathan Belete, World Bank Country Director for Senegal.

The Senegalese economy has been impacted by COVID-19 through several channels. According to Meriem Ait Ali Slimane, Laurent Gonnet, World Bank Project Task Team Leaders, "to stimulate economic recovery and build back better, it will be important to strengthen the competitiveness of key sectors, with a focus on exports, improve MSMEs productivity and technology adoption, and introduce performant financing mechanisms such as partial credit guarantees and public-private equity funds."

The Senegal JET project will support increased exports, and MSMEs' productivity and technology Adoption. The project will have a particular focus on access to finance, in the form of loan guarantees and equity, with targets for women-led businesses.

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