The Senegalese President, Macky Sall, presented this April 22 in Diamniado (30 km north of Dakar), his employment plan of 450 billion FCFA (827 million dollars) in three years. This program, the beginnings of which had been unveiled during the speech of April 3, on the eve of Independence Day, gives substance to decree 2021-172 of January 27, 2021 establishing and setting the operating rules of the National Council for the ‘Integration and Youth Employment. “These resources will be used to finance the Emergency Program for the employment and socio-economic integration of young people, XËYU NDAW ÑI, which will result from this Presidential Council”, declared the president in front of an audience of decision-makers, representatives of partners in social dialogue and, among others, religious authorities.
The orientations of President Macky Sall will be based on a dozen existing structures or to be extended, like the Fund for the Financing of Vocational and Technical Training (the 3FPT), to which the resources drawn from the Fixed Contribution to the Charge are paid. of the Employer, or more than 20 billion CFA francs per year to support vocational training. Also requested, the National Agency for Youth Employment (ANPEJ), the General Delegation for the Rapid Entrepreneurship of Women and Youth (DER / FJ), the National Microfinance Fund, the School-Business Training Program, Vocational and Technical Training Centers, due to at least one Center in each Department, and 15 of which will start this year, the Senegalese Youth Entrepreneurship Program, the Community Agricultural Areas Program (PRODAC), the National Agency for Integration and Agricultural Development (ANIDA) and, finally, the State-Employers Agreement, the scope of which will be extended to the agriculture and agribusiness sector, in order to support the efforts of self-sufficiency in food and processing of local products.
It remains to find consistency between these different programs and structures for rapid implementation allowing Senegal to go well beyond the 150,000 jobs per year currently created. The Head of State also mentioned it in his speech, “to stand the test of time, one of the objectives of this Council is to see how to improve the overall coherence of all these structures by better pooling of their resources ”. Committed to economic growth of 6% per year on average since 2014, Dakar is faced with a demand for labor that is growing faster than supply. The state whose vocation is to promote a good business climate conducive to investment cannot recruit all candidates for public service employment, recalls President Macky Sall.
The Senegalese social context is also exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic which has seen the country’s growth rate drop from the 6.8% projected for 2020 to 1.5%. Sub-Saharan Africa has entered recession, a first for 25 years. In addition to these economic problems, there is demography. About 76% of the Senegalese population is under 35 years old. The resolution of the employment issue will also require, as the Head of State stressed, a profound reform of the Senegalese school. “We have opted for strengthening scientific fields and orienting 30% of students from the basic cycle towards vocational education, through CFPTs and dual school-business training”. And Macky Sall called on the private sector to further support dual school-business training, to give young people a beginner’s chance and help them better prepare for professional life.
