How to finance Vision Senegal 2050? During the sharing of the Public Policy Framework, Diomaye and Sonko announced that they will raise 18 thousand 496.83 billion CFA francs on the domestic market. The Head of State is also counting on the support of the sovereign funds of Qatar and Abu Dhabi to « accompany us in the national transformation agenda, namely Vision 2050 ».

Will the Arab world be a laboratory for the authorities in their sovereigntist project? If France, the United States, Canada, Japan and also Morocco constituted the Senegalese diplomatic arc, Abdoulaye Wade and Macky Sall had strengthened it with countries of the Middle East, China and also Turkey. President Faye decided to strengthen this axis by turning to crowned heads of Arab countries to finance Vision 2050. On the side-lines of the OIC Summit on the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, he met with the Saudi leadership in Riyadh to clear up the ambiguities caused by the cancellation of the Acwa Power contract. This cancellation had considerably irritated Crown Prince Ben Salman, but the two parties managed to dispel the clouds to start anew.

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More than a month later, Bassirou Diomaye returned to the Gulf, notably to Abu Dhabi, to strengthen the “close ties that unite Senegal and the United Arab Emirates” in the areas of energy, infrastructure, digital technology, education and agriculture. “This meeting opens new perspectives for innovative and beneficial partnerships for our peoples,” the Presidency assured in a press release. “It is with great pleasure that I was received by His Highness Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Together, we reaffirmed our common desire to strengthen relations between our two nations,” said Bassirou Diomaye Faye in a post on X, who insisted on “the importance of establishing solid collaborations with the United Arab Emirates, a key partner in the Middle East.” 

« Sovereign funds in the Gulf Emirates are very powerful funds »

On Friday, after 48 hours in the UAE, the Head of State joined Doha to participate in an international forum devoted to global issues such as sustainable development and economic resilience. The objective is to convince international investors and partners to come and invest in Senegal, particularly in the Senegal Vision 20250 project. Interviewed by RTS, he said: « It is about being present on the international scene and making everyone register, more or less definitively, the new African posture consisting of defending, with the necessary firmness, the appropriate diplomatic courtesy, the aspiration of African peoples to a little more sovereignty in an open partnership, in the respect of our social norms, our differences. The opportunity of this forum was to allow us to meet partners to accompany us in the national transformation agenda, namely Vision 2050. In this respect, we had interesting meetings which open up perspectives which can be very happy for the Senegalese people. »

He continued: “A generally satisfactory assessment. In the Emirates, we met many potential investors. The sovereign funds in the Gulf Emirates are very powerful funds, whether it is the Abu Dhabi Fund or the Qatar Fund, we can truly count on them, if we succeed in convincing them of the relevance of investing in Senegal, in the strategic sectors that can induce a real systemic transformation of our economy. We were also given the opportunity to invite them to participate in the Invest in Senegal Forum, and they gave their agreement in principle. This will be an opportunity to present our opportunities and the priority projects and programs included in Vision Senegal 2050.”

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For the Head of State, this is an assumed way of seeking additional funding in the Gulf monarchies to achieve the systemic transformation of the Senegalese economy, fuelled by a series of fundraising activities on the regional and international market. The support of these partners can be a real breath of fresh air for Senegal, whose sovereign rating was downgraded following the Prime Minister’s revelations about the falsification of public accounts and the freezing of new disbursements from the International Monetary Fund.

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It should be noted that the government estimates its financing needs, to achieve the objectives of Vision 2050 for the next 26 years, at 18 thousand 496.83 billion CFA francs, which should be raised exclusively on the national and regional market. In detail, it is composed of traditional public financing, that is to say exclusively supported by the central public administration, of 11,510 billion CFA francs, financing in the form of Public-Private Partnership (PPP) expected at 4,371 billion CFA francs, including 1,311 billion, or 30% of State counterpart and the exclusive contribution of the private sector within the framework of structuring projects for an amount of 2,615.8 billion CFA francs. In total, the public investment program is estimated at 12,821.4 billion CFA francs, while the total contribution of the private sector is expected at 5,675.38 billion CFA francs. « Therefore, the National Development Strategy (NDS) establishes an innovation in that there is no longer any public funding to seek for the management of the five-year development plan, » the document states.

For the Five-Year Development Strategy 2025-2029, the State decided not to go to the Consultative Group to obtain funding. In addition to State resources, the private sector should fill the gap with priority given to nationals, then African countries.

By Bocar SAKHO / bsakho@lequotidien.sn

  • Translation by Ndey T. SOSSEH / Serigne S. DIAGNE