Dakar – President Macky Sall on Tuesday announced “emergency” cash transfers to more than half a million Senegalese households to help them cope with the fallout from the war in Ukraine and the Covid pandemic.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, oil and grain prices have soared on world markets, hitting poorer countries like Senegal particularly hard.
Seeking “to offer solutions at this unfavourable time”, Sall told an event in Dakar that he has decided to offer 542,956 households “an exceptional financial cash transfer” of 43.4 billion CFA francs ($70 million).
He said the aim was to give 80,000 CFA francs per household and “improve their level of consumption and education of their children”.
Sall described the programme as “an exceptional emergency measure”.
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The government will use mobile payments to transfer funds to poor homes, the authorities said.
Senegal, a country of more than 17 million inhabitants, is listed among the poorest in the world.
The funds to finance the programme flow from a World Bank project, with other sponsors including Germany and the United Kingdom, according to Nathan Belete, the director of World Bank operations for Senegal.
Senegal’s economy in the last year resumed its pre-pandemic growth trajectory but the war in Ukraine has dampened economic prospects, the International Monetary Fund said in a statement.
The rising prices from the war in Ukraine add to the fallout from the pandemic, regional insecurity and increased social demands ahead of parliamentary elections in July, said Edward Gemayel, who led an IMF delegation to Senegal in March.
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Source: AFP
Picture: Getty Images
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