The Senegalese government launched its Digital Economy Acceleration Project in Senegal (PAENS) on Friday in Dakar, financed with assistance from the World Bank to the tune of 95 billion CFA francs (approximately $150 million).
The main objective of this project is “to expand access to affordable and climate-resilient broadband connectivity and improve the adoption of online public services and electronic medical records,” said Senegalese Minister of Communication, Telecommunications and Digital Affairs, Alioune Sall, during the project’s launch ceremony.
The project will make it possible to “forget all the problems in the field of health and digitalization”, the minister said, stressing that “the numerous initiatives taken in recent years on the administrative, legal, regulatory and infrastructure levels have not produced results that meet expectations”.
“Our aspiration to become a reference in the digital field in Africa by 2025 has unfortunately become out of reach,” he said.
The Minister of Health and Social Action, Ibrahima Sy, for his part welcomed the advantages of this project.
“By choosing to strengthen digital health infrastructures, digital health governance, and digital platforms, PAENS has positioned itself at the heart of our current concerns,” he said, noting that “any failure in these areas could undermine the trust that providers must have in digital technology.”
“All World Bank teams working for Senegal will be mobilized alongside the government throughout the process to contribute in the medium and long term to the growth and development of the country,” declared, for her part, the sector director for digital development at the World Bank, Jana Kunicova.
She added that the project aims by 2029 to offer “new or improved access” to high-speed internet to “5 million people in the Casamance and peanut basin areas and for health, to digitize medical records in 50% of health care centers.
