afrol News, 15 December - The government of Senegal has borrowed US$ 30 million from the World Bank to finance its poverty reduction strategy and to strengthen its capacity to carry out this strategy. The credit is focusing on a project of administrative reforms and decentralisation in Senegal.

The World Bank yesterday announced that it had approved the credit asked for by Senegalese authorities. The credit, according to the Bank, was to "support the implementation of Senegal's poverty reduction strategy and to strengthen the government's capacity to design and carry out its own development and poverty reduction programmes."

With the credit, the government aims to improve the effectiveness and transparency of the national budget process and expenditure management as the main instrument for achieving national development goals. Poverty reduction is a policy priority in the country, where more than half of the population lives with less than US$ 2 per day.

The World Bank credit was said to support Senegal's poverty reduction strategy "in terms of improved living conditions for the poor with an emphasis on improving public service delivery through the rationalisation of budgetary and financial procedures as well as the improvement of basic social services delivery within the country."

The credit was to focus on the decentralisation process by securing financial transfers to local governments as well as implementing the poverty reduction strategy agenda at the regional or local level. It was also to assist the authorities in their effort to improve health services, with a focus on improving financial and human resources management in the heath sector as well as improve and expand access to basic health services and drugs.

- The reforms supported by the credit will help maintain economic growth and improve living conditions for Senegalese, commented Jacques Morisset, the World Bank responsible for the project financed by the credit.

Mr Morisset added that "the programme that will be implemented thanks to the credit will enhance ownership and functionality for the government in policy planning and budget management, and ultimately assist it in making progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals."

Adopted by the United Nations in 2001, these goals seek to free men, women and children from a set of eight dehumanising conditions of extreme poverty and disease. The goals are also commonly accepted as a framework for measuring development progress, and are mostly referred to in World Bank and IMF project.

The so-called Poverty Reduction Support Credit for Senegal was further expected to "play a central role" in the country by providing a more coordinated approach to the delivery of basic social services throughout the country. It was finally expected to improve project implementation over time and help increase the overall effectiveness of aid to the country, according to the World Bank.

By staff writer

© afrol News

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