Context
In December 2013, the Senegalese Government revised its development strategy and agreed the Plan Sénégal Emergent (PSE), which contains its key development and governmental priorities for the next ten years. At a donor conference held in Paris at the end of February 2014, the Senegalese Government successfully obtained financial commitments from donors and the private sector.
The development priorities that have been identified now need to be transformed into programmes and measures. This poses a whole series of challenges for the government and administrative system. In addition to a volatile macro-economic environment, a large budget deficit and high poverty levels, institutional and individual performance bottlenecks persist. They are hampering the realistic planning, implementation and evaluation of development measures.
Objective
National development priorities are more fully integrated into national financial planning.
Approach
The advisory programme has a high profile in the Ministry of Economy and Finance cabinet. Positioned at the interface between development strategy and national budget, it contributes towards the implementation of key reform processes and national development strategy measures. The programme advises partners on coordinating and using tools to plan, implement and evaluate development measures in the fields of energy, gender and public finance. It also supports the economic dialogue on drawing up and incorporating sector-specific and subject-specific recommendations, and advises the Ministry on the preparation of a joint donor strategy.
Results achieved so far
The advisory programme has overseen the preparation of the new national development strategy. As part of this task, it advised on the process of identifying regional development priorities and involving civil society actors, primarily women's associations. This has enabled the following key reform issues to be integrated into the development strategy: regional economic development, gender, energy sector priorities and key public finance reforms.
The programme has supported the national public finance reform plan, for example improving the prerequisites for a more systematic application of the investment budget at regional level.
The Ministry's skills, resources and capacity to control and implement reform processes has been improved. Service contracts have been introduced in two directorates within the Ministry of Economy and Finance to increase the results-based focus of administrative processes. Corresponding contracts will be drawn up in additional directorates and ministries.
With assistance from the advisory programme, a national policy for development cooperation has been drawn up, with the intention of improving the alignment and harmonisation of donor contributions.