Thiès, June 29 (APS) – The Minister of Microfinance Alioune Badara Dione revisited Friday, in Thiès, the strategy of his department, to help “revolutionize” the country’s economy, thanks to a systematization of the chain approach of value, through four types of intervention or “boutiques”.
“We decided, beyond the articulation of microfinance to the social solidarity economy, to systematize the value chain approach, which allows us to identify the entire production chain, both upstream, during, and downstream,” said Alioune Dione.
He was making a working visit to the headquarters of the Network of Producer Organizations (RESOPP), in the industrial zone of Thiès.
This involves meeting needs in terms of means of production, including inputs, with the aggregation dimension which is important for cooperatives, but also aspects linked to transport, storage, processing and distribution.
The idea, according to him, is to “employ as many people as possible across the entire value chain”.
To do this, producers will have to create semi-industrial units through cooperatives which, instead of delivering raw materials to industries, provide them with semi-manufactured products.
The subject was raised with industrialists on Thursday during the company’s meetings in Dakar, he said.
In this regard, Alioune Dione announced the signing of a protocol between his ministry and that of Industry and Commerce.
According to him, his department has identified four types of intervention or “boutiques”. These are uni-production and aggregation stores, storage stores, transport and distribution stores, as well as sample stores.
He considers that the creation of massive jobs, targeted by the Project, public policy reference of the new government, “can only be achieved through the social and solidarity economy”.
For him, job creation which occurs exclusively through industrialization can help to have manufactured products, but may not succeed in creating massive jobs.
Sustainable inclusive employment, consisting of “making everyone work”, requires a dialectical relationship between manufactured products and my semi-manufactured products.
Such a formula leads to an “optimization of interventions”, through what is called “sustainable inclusive industrial development”, he suggested.
“It is this industrial character to which we will serve as a transition, which will lead us to sign an agreement with the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, to achieve a sustainable economy, he said, because our ambition is to revolutionize the economy of Senegal under the instruction of President Bassirou Diomaye Faye.
For the official, structured producer organizations like RESOPP could constitute key parts in this production chain.
The RESOPP model was praised by the Minister of Microfinance and Social and Solidarity Economy. It has the “merit of being both a social and solidarity economy organization and a microfinance structure, through the mutual insurance company connected to the cooperatives it covers,” he said, following his colleagues.
Presented as a “social enterprise”, Resopp is the first social solidarity economy player approved by the Ministry of Microfinance last year. It has had an agreement for 10 years with a savings and credit mutual (COOPEC).
“The RESOPP aims to defend the interests of its members, in particular by increasing their negotiating power and by allowing them to benefit from a significant gain in scale which allows them to purchase inputs more cheaply and to better market their production. “, notes the organization on its website.
The distribution of inputs on credit is done by vouchers, in order to “avoid any diversion of objectives,” explained a manager.
“In terms of infrastructure, we are not complaining, but in terms of financial resources, we have problems,” he told the minister.
Compared to its members, the $1.5 billion in funding it obtained in 2023 is “very low,” he said. The network finished paying its debt on Thursday, officials noted.
The institutional diagnosis of RESOPP, as well as that of its production chain, made it possible to detect “organizational difficulties,” noted Alioune Dione.
The expectations of these producers from the State revolve around organizational and technical support, in particular, as well as digitalization.
After recently beginning a tour of making contact with decentralized financial companies (SFD), which he said will continue across the country, the new minister began, with RESOPP, his visits to social solidarity economy organizations. The same day, he went to Pambal, in the Tivaouane department, to meet female producers, in particular, and to inquire about their difficulties.
ADI
