Senegal
EU grants for decentralisation in Senegal

afrol News, 10 June - The European Union has granted 21 million euros for a budgetary support to the Senegalese decentralisation efforts. The grant came after the Senegalese government had complained about the "slowness in the execution" of European development aid.

Athanassios Theodorakis, Deputy Director-General for Development at the European Commission today met with Senegalese Prime Minister Mame Madior Boye in a Dakar workshop on cooperation. Mr Theodorakis and Ms Boye signed the new financing agreement at the workshop, according to a statement released by the EU.

The grant was to be a "direct support to local investments", as "a support to local development planning initiatives at the level of regions, cities and rural zones," according to the statement. The resources were mobilised from the European Development Fund (EDF).

The Dakar workshop is looking into the development cooperation between Senegal and the EU. Opening the workshop, Prime Minister Boye stated she was not at all impressed by the performance of EDF, calling it "very weak". She insisted on the necessity to "adjust disbursals to a level corresponding to the ambitions of the government." Senegal after all was an "exemplary partner" in the cooperation.

Within the context of the EDF, European cooperation with Senegal mainly targets the restructuring of public services (particularly health and road-transport infrastructures), boosting agricultural growth, regional economic and political integration via WAEMU. The EU also supports local economic growth by creating jobs and local income, developing non-industrial fishing and farming methods and through decentralisation.

EU-Senegal cooperation has slowed somewhat over the last years. The national programme incorporating the cooperation actions of the 8th EDF between 1997 and 2002 had many objectives, "but the reform promised by the previous government was relatively slow in coming," according to an EU evaluation.

EU Commissioner Poul Nielson visited Senegal in April this year, also addressing the status of the EU's cooperation with that country, "in order to find solutions which will speed up present cooperation and make it more effective." During his visit, he, like Mr Theodorakis today, lamented the "delays" and the low quality" of the "preparation and the execution" of EU aid to Senegal.

Sources: Based on EU, press reports and afrol archives

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