As part of the "Fii Senegal 2025" forum, the Ministry of State responsible for monitoring the National Transformation Agenda, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Livestock, and the World Bank Group organized a major panel discussion on the central theme: "Accelerating agricultural transformation in Senegal: structuring projects and strategic priorities." This important meeting was held on Tuesday, October 7, at CICAD, in Diamniadio, under the chairmanship of the Minister of State to the President of the Republic, responsible for monitoring, steering, and evaluating the National Transformation Agenda Senegal 2050, Ahmadou Al Aminou Lo, and the Minister of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Livestock, Dr. Mabouba Diagne.

Objective: “to highlight innovations that increase the productivity of smallholder farmers and facilitate their access to agricultural financing”

The event brought together key public and private stakeholders in Senegal's agricultural sector, including government authorities and agencies, farmers' associations, AgTech companies, financial institutions, and industrialists. The objective was to raise awareness among these stakeholders of the Senegalese government's new dynamics in managing and implementing agricultural projects, particularly to achieve food self-sufficiency in Senegal; and to highlight innovations that can increase the productivity of smallholder farmers and facilitate their access to agricultural financing.

To this end, Minister of State Ahmadou Al Aminou Lo presented the new governance framework for projects in Senegal in line with Vision Senegal 2050; and the impacts of this new framework on the implementation of agricultural projects.

“We want quick wins”

According to him, this meeting is "a concrete expression of how the government now wants to work." "We want quick wins. We've waited long enough, we've procrastinated long enough, we've spent too much money, we've relied too much on donors without any return. This is what we want to change. And to do this, we are now asking all ministries to work in a project-based manner, to deliver their projects with performance indicators," the Minister of State revealed.

He adds: "This AgriTech project will be cross-cutting across several projects under the responsibility of the Ministry of Agriculture, with a monitoring system by the Operational Coordination and Monitoring Office, but above all a strategic steering system where we now want to have impacts on the projects. If there is one element that I would like to give as a main recommendation, it is that we need impact indicators."

The Minister of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Livestock, for his part, returned to the context and the government's ambition for food sovereignty, and the role of technology and innovations in Senegalese agriculture.

The opportunity was also given to the Vice President for Africa of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), Mr. Ethiopis Tafara, to give a detailed presentation on the collaboration and partnerships of the World Bank Group in agriculture in Senegal.

Two agreements signed

To close the session, which lasted more than five hours, Minister Mabouba Diagne and the Vice President of IFC Africa, as well as the Director General of the National Agricultural Insurance Company of Senegal (CNAAS), Mr. Mouhamadou Moustapha Fall, signed agreements.