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Senegal

Senegal Annual Country Report 2022 - Country Strategic Plan 2019 - 2023

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Overview

In 2022, the progress made in fighting food insecurity and malnutrition in Senegal was significantly hampered by global inflation and stagflation trends, disruptions caused by the Ukraine crisis (staple food, fertilisers), the long-lasting effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, poor harvests resulting from climate change effects and political instability in West Africa.

These factors compounded existing vulnerabilities, with the number of food-insecure people increasing by 80 percent during the 2022 lean season compared to 2021 (from 490,000 to 880,000, respectively), according to the Cadre Harmonisé analysis [1]. These challenges created increasing needs, leading WFP to reach over 895,000 people - 80 percent more than in 2021. WFP continued to support the local economy, injecting USD 5.3 million into local markets through cash-based transfers. To adjust its programming while supporting evidence-based decision-making, WFP jointly conducted with the National Food Security Council/ (SECNSA) a food security and nutrition assessment, which results informed the Cadre Harmonisé. WFP built its operations and direct assistance on a strong field presence, thanks to its three sub-offices based in Kolda (South), Kaolack (Center), and more recently in Matam (North).

As a key achievement in 2022, WFP strengthened its rural development portfolio, mobilising USD 10 million compared to USD 2.5 million in 2021. This marked a significant shift towards its Changing Lives agenda. Thus, about 53,000 tree seedlings were provided, 180,000 people benefited from assets and climate adaptation practices, and about 240,000 people benefited from WFP’s food assistance for assets (FFA) initiative, which addresses immediate food needs through cash while promoting the building or rehabilitation of assets that will improve long-term food security and resilience.

As part of its support to the Government of Senegal that urged partners to step in and support the National Response Plan (PNR) to address emergency food needs during the 2022 lean season, WFP expanded its cash assistance, reaching 28,000 households (over 200,000 people) with acute food needs, a 120 percent increase compared to 2021.

However, due to a lack of funding, this assistance only covered 25 percent of the 2022 national needs. WFP complemented the government's large-scale two-month emergency cash assistance and targeted four departments identified in crisis by the Cadre Harmonisé analysis: Matam, Kanel, Ranérou, and Goudiry, where cash assistance and specialised nutritious food (SNF) were provided to prevent and treat moderate acute malnutrition respectively. About 80,000 beneficiaries were reached, including children aged 6-59 months and pregnant and lactating women and girls (PLW/G). WFP continued to incentivise children’s education by providing daily school meals to 250,000 schoolchildren (54 percent girls) in 11 out of the 14 regions of Senegal. WFP's school feeding flagship programmes participated in creating a local circular economy, connecting producers, retailers and schools, and promoting local production to diversify schoolchildren's food baskets better.

Working towards the alleviation of climate change impacts on the most vulnerable communities, WFP supported communities in protecting, restoring, creating, and enhancing key assets and basic infrastructure in their livelihoods, using its 4R Rural Resilience 4R approach, which combines four risk management strategies: i) improved natural resource management through asset creation or improved agricultural practices (risk reduction), ii) microinsurance (risk transfer) and increased investment, iii) livelihoods diversification and iv) microcredit (prudent risk taking) and savings (risk reserves). As a result of WFP's assistance to facilitate access to micro-insurance solutions for smallholder farmers (SHF), over 41,500 SHF subscribed to index-based agriculture insurance, of which 4736 received a total of USD 78,751 compensation aftershocks.

WFP embarked on the fourth of its five-year country strategic plan (CSP) 2019-2023 and began to design its new CSP's pillars based on the past years' learnings. The independent office of evaluation (OEV) commissioned a CSP Evaluation (CSPE) covering all of WFP's activities in Senegal implemented from 2018 to 2022. The evaluation aimed to provide evidence and to learn about WFP performance for country-level strategic decisions, specifically for developing the next CSP 2023 - 2027 and to draw lessons and recommendations for the remaining CSP period. All key stakeholders (Government officials, donors, cooperating partners, civil and private society, and WFP) were involved in this evaluation. The final report is expected in 2023.