SENEGAL: PPP program support - Legal Framework and Strategic Direction (Phase 1)

Senegal has a roadmap, the “Plan Sénégal Émergent,” to achieve middle-income status by 2035. But to get there—and overcome the economic setbacks from COVID-19—Senegal needs more investment in key infrastructure sectors such as energy, water and sanitation, roads and transportation, education, and health. The financing needed is significant for this West African nation of 16.8 million people, with an infrastructure gap equivalent to 3 percent of its $25 billion GDP.  However, the PPP program stalled under Senegal’s 2014 public-private partnership (PPP) framework, which was never fully implemented and was in need of modernization and revitalization.

Under PPIAF’s PPP institution building program, the World Bank has been providing Senegal with support since 2019 for the implementation of a successful PPP ecosystem, including a next generation PPP framework. PPIAF and the government of Senegal have been working closely, resulting in even greater progress than in prior efforts.

PPIAF programmatic support for Senegal is being implemented in three phases:

1. Setting the strategic direction for the PPP program in Senegal (2019–2022).
2. Implementation of detailed institutional design and piloting the new PPP framework through first-mover projects identified under phase I (2022–2023).
3. Scaling up and fully operationalizing the key institutional structures for the PPP framework (2023–2025).

Under Phase 1, which concluded in July 2022, PPIAF worked on two parallel tracks to set the strategic direction for the PPP program under a revised legal framework and to identify potential projects. The law clarified PPP processes and strengthened mechanisms for the efficient development of high-quality PPP projects. In parallel, PPIAF provided capacity building and supported the identification of a robust initial pipeline of PPP projects in seven sectors. The PPP unit is working to present first-mover PPP projects, that are in the most advanced stages of design, to the market in the second half of 2022. PPIAF support will continue to enable the government to mainstream considerations for identifying climate risks and climate-smart investment opportunities in the planification and preparation of infrastructure PPP projects.