Chinese Government provides RMB 200 million grant in 2018 for Phase 1 of Smart Senegal Project (Linked to Record ID#73114)

On February 8, 2018, during a meeting between the Chinese Ambassador to Senegal Zhang Xun and Senegalese Minister of Economy, Finance and Planning Amadou Ba, the Government of Senegal and China Eximbank signed an RMB 1.05 billion government concessional loan (GCL) agreement and an RMB 200 million grant agreement for Phase 1 of the Smart Senegal Project.

The GCL is captured via February 8, 2018. The RMB 200 million grant is captured via Record ID#92565.

According to the Government of Senegal’s Aid Management Platform, the GCL disbursed in 2019 and 2020 and achieved an overall disbursement rate of 100%.

This project aims to leverage information and communication technology to reduce the digital deficit and make Senegal a sub-regional hub in West Africa, particularly in the areas of security, education, health, and tourism.

The Smart Senegal Project consists of five major sub-projects: (1) Safe City: This sub-project aims to strengthen public security through the use of technological tools and processes for the collection, analysis of flows, events from various communication systems and dissemination of information; (2) Smart Education: This sub-project project aims on the one hand to modernize network, processing, and data storage infrastructures and on the other hand to deploy technological platforms to improve teaching and learning in universities, schools elementary, middle and high schools in Senegal. (3) Smart Territories: This sub-project aims to provide user-centered services (citizens, administrations, and businesses) by building a citizen’s house (“La Maison du Citoyen”) in all the country's departments; (4) Submarine Cable: The purpose of this sub-project is to land a submarine cable in Senegal allowing access to international bandwidth.

This new device will increase Senegal's internet capacity and vary the Internet access offer for ISPs; and (5) Smart Wifi: The Smart Wifi sub-project project aims to fight against the digital isolation of territories by increasing the number of digital access points. It will allow citizens to access a high-speed internet connection in public places.

This access will be open to all citizens and will be available on all types of terminals (smartphone, tablet, laptop, etc.). In essence, this project aims to support the digital transformation of Senegal's networks. Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. is the contractor responsible for implementation.

Project implementation began in January 2019, and in early 2021, Huawei installed an online-meeting platform for the central government of Senegal, allowing high-level officials to meet virtually amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

The digital hub portion of the project was completed on June 22, 2021 and celebrated during a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by the Senegalese President Macky Sall and Chinese Ambassador to Senegal. At this ceremony, the Government of Senegal also announced its plans to transfer government data to the center.