USAID Support Promotes Transparency and Accountability in Senegal’s Extractive Industries

U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Senegal has commenced a four-year program with the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI), Forum Civil and ONG-3D to promote transparency and accountability in the country’s oil, gas and mining sectors.
 
The USAID TRACES program aims to improve governance in the extractive sector, ensuring better revenue management and distribution for the benefit of all Senegalese citizens. The implementation start date was September 20, 2022
 
NRGI, a global policy and advocacy institute with expertise on good governance in the extractive sector, is the lead implementing partner. NRGI and USAID Senegal will work in consortium with Forum Civil (Senegal’s chapter of Transparency International) and ONG-3D to implement this USD 10 million program.
 
USAID TRACES aims to deliver the following results:

• Improved budget management of extractive revenues and an enhanced regulatory and institutional oversight mechanism
• Increased access to and use of information and data by Senegalese CSOs and media outlets, and more effective CSO and media advocacy
• Increased citizen and community-level knowledge and understanding of rights, improved local authority participation in extractive governance, and increased equitable use of social and economic funds generated by the extractive sector

The USAID TRACES program will sustain these results by targeting and building the capacity of existing Senegalese institutions and actors and integrating new innovations into the country’s extractive governance ecosystem.
 
“Working hand in hand with our partners in government and civil society, we welcome this opportunity to support Senegal as it moves toward significant oil and gas production,” said Suneeta Kaimal, president and CEO of NRGI. “Informed, open and evidence-based dialogue and decision making, mindful of local realities, is key at this critical juncture.”
 
The program will combine partners’ depth of local knowledge and networks, with leading-edge analysis and proven approaches to increasing citizen engagement in extractives transparency and accountability.
 
“This program will significantly bolster civil society’s contribution to transparency related to the management of natural resources in Senegal,” said Moundiaye Cisse, Executive Director of ONG-3D. 
 
USAID TRACES also seeks to increase benefits to women and to better protect women’s rights in extractive contexts, with program design integrating gender-sensitive and gender-specific activities. TRACES will also reach out to young people (including young women) to increase their understanding of and engagement with the extractives sector so that Senegal has an informed citizenry.
 
“The USAID TRACES program will consolidate and strengthen Forum Civil’s work in Senegal’s extractive sector by empowering journalists, women, community and civil society organizations as well as artists,” said Birahime Seck, General Coordinator of Forum Civil. “The USAID TRACES program will also be a means of strengthening the capacities of parliamentarians and regional authorities to ensure effective ownership and stewardship of natural resources as required by Senegal’s constitution.”
 
The program will operate at both national and subnational levels in Senegal, including commodity-producing communities. At the subnational level, partners will prioritize implementing the program in the regions of Thiès, Kédougou, St. Louis, Matam and Fatick.