A few weeks before Senegal presents its report on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to the United Nations, Senegalese civil society is raising its voice on the challenges related to development financing and the burden of public debt.

Gathered this Wednesday at a workshop dedicated to the formulation of the alternative report on the implementation of the SDGs in Senegal, civil society actors examined the main issues that will be at the heart of the national assessment planned during the UN High-Level Political Forum in July 2026 in New York.

This year's assessment focuses on five priority goals identified by the United Nations, including SDG 6 on water and sanitation; SDG 7 on energy; SDG 9 on industry; SDG 11 on sustainable cities and communities; and SDG 17 on partnership and financing for development.

The president of the National Commission of Civil Society Actors (CASC), Ibrahima Fall, believes that SDG 17 occupies a central place in this assessment, due to the challenges related to development financing.

According to him, the current state of public finances, marked by the burden of debt and difficulties in financing essential sectors such as social protection and youth employment, requires appropriate responses.

"SDG 17 will be carefully examined in order to propose to the State levers and guidelines for a development financing policy that truly meets the expectations of the people," he said.

For civil society, the issue of debt relief now appears unavoidable. Ibrahima Fall points out that Senegal faces significant debt which currently limits its access to certain financing.

In this perspective, civil society actors are advocating for concrete debt restructuring and relief measures to enable the country to free up more budgetary space to finance social sectors and support vulnerable populations.

They are therefore calling for a reform of the governance of the global financial architecture in order to promote fairer debt policies that are better adapted to the realities of developing countries like Senegal.