WASHINGTON, May 26, 2011 – The Board of executive Directors of the World bank approved Thursday a US$42 million credit to contribute to strengthening the Government of Senegal‘s policy making and institutional capabilities.
Mamadou Ndione, Senior economist based in Senegal country office and Co-Task Team Leader, recalled that the new PRSC-V is consistent with the objectives of the Bank‘s FY07-10 Country Assistance Strategy and would be the second and last of a new series of two PRSCs. It follows a first series of three PRSCs successfully implemented, two stand-alone Development Policy Operations, one in 2008 (focusing on the energy sector) and another in 2009 (under the IDA Financial Crisis Response Fast-track Facility), and the first operation (PRSC-IV) of the new series approved by the Board on June 1, 2010.
This fifth Poverty Reduction Support Credit (PRSC-V) is expected to support the Government objective to achieve results in the area of road maintenance, education, health, nutrition, public financial management, , environment, and statistics.
Alain D’Hoore, Lead Economist based in Senegal and Co-Task Team Leader, indicated that this new single tranche budget support “will help to improve the environment for private investment and to ensure greater efficiency of public expenditure on human capital formation”.
The credit will also be used by the Government of Senegal to mitigate social and environmental vulnerabilities and to promote better governance through public financial management, procurement, debt management and statistical system reforms, he added
The PRSC-V will keep a focus on road maintenance to help bringing the road investment policy framework to a level where risks of losses of the road capital are drastically reduced and future investment can be made sustainable.
“The World bank support will also help to improve the human development by supporting the second pillar of the Government’s poverty reduction agenda which focuses on promoting access to basic social services by a growing share of the population”, said Mr. D’Hoore
The PRSC-V builds on PRSC-IV achievements and continues to support reforms to improve human resource management in education, to respond more effectively to the diverse demand for schooling in selected regions, to improve public hospital efficiency, and to improve coverage and financial sustainability of the government‘s community-based nutrition program through adequate budget allocations.
Regarding mitigation of environmental vulnerabilities, the credit supports a transparent access restriction policy to fisheries resources.
