The Senegalese government launched its Digital Economy Acceleration Project in Senegal (PAENS) in Dakar on Friday, funded with the assistance of the World Bank to the tune of 95 billion CFA francs (around 150 million dollars).
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, at the project’s launch ceremony.
The project will allow “to forget all the problems in the field of health, digitalization”, indicated the minister, stressing that “the numerous initiatives taken in recent years on the administrative, legal, regulatory and infrastructural level, 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 declared, noting that “any failure in these areas, could alter the confidence that service 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 World Bank’s digital development sector director, Jana Kunicova.
She added that the project aims to offer “new or improved access” to high-speed internet to “5 million people in the Casamance and Peanut Basin areas by 2029, and for health, to digitize medical records in 50% of health care centers.”
With MAP
