World Bank approves $110 million for the Municipal and Agglomerations Support Program
WASHINGTON, January 30, 2018 - Senegal will take a leap forward in effectively bringing good governance and service delivery closer to the people with a $110 million International Development Association (IDA)* credit approved today by the World Bank.
The Municipal and Agglomerations Support Program-for-Results (MASP) will help improve local government financing by increasing capital grants transferred from the state to local governments, introducing objective and equitable criteria for the allocation of grants, and building the capacity of local governments to generate their own local revenues. It also aims to enhance the performance of participating urban local governments in managing public investments to improve the provision of services to local populations.
The MASP “will enable the World Bank to support the Government in effecting a transformative change, placing municipalities and municipal councils in the driving seat of development,” said Louise Cord, World Bank Country Director in Senegal. “Within five years it should result in a dramatic uptick in municipal public service infrastructure at the local level and an enlivened fiscal and administrative decentralization process at the national level, as envisaged under the Decentralization Act III.”
“By substantially improving the financial resources available to local governments and establishing the incentive and support mechanisms needed to boost local government performance, the program will reinforce the critical role that local governments ought to play in leading local development and responding to the needs of their constituents,” said Salim Rouhana and Bronwyn Grieve, World Bank Task Team Leaders of the Program.
This MASP will also benefit from a Euro 80 million of French Development Agency (AFD) co-financing.
The financing is approved on the eve of the visit of World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim to Senegal who arrives in Dakar on February 1 on a three-day visit in conjunction with the visit of President Emmanuel Macron of France. The visit follows the One Planet Summit which they co-hosted in Paris in December 2017. During his visit, the World Bank Group President will hold bilateral meetings with President Macky Sall of Senegal.
* The World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA), established in 1960, helps the world’s poorest countries by providing grants and low to zero-interest loans for projects and programs that boost economic growth, reduce poverty, and improve poor people’s lives. IDA is one of the largest sources of assistance for the world’s 75 poorest countries, 39 of which are in Africa. Resources from IDA bring positive change to the 1.5 billion people who live in IDA countries. Since 1960, IDA has supported development work in 113 countries. Annual commitments have averaged about $18 billion over the last three years, with about 54 percent going to Africa.
