The Government of Senegal, in partnership with the World Bank Group, announced the launch of the AgriConnect Senegal Compact in Dakar on February 10, 2026. According to the World Bank, the initiative aims to transform the country's agri-food systems and improve food security for millions of Senegalese, and one of its headline goals is 800,000 formal jobs in agriculture by 2029.
Three value chains, three lines of work
The compact is aligned with the Senegal National Agenda for Transformation 2050 and the Food Sovereignty Strategy for 2025 to 2034. It is a harmonised implementation mechanism that brings together the Government and the World Bank Group, through the International Development Association (IDA), the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), with technical and financial partners, the private sector and producer organisations.
It concentrates on three priority value chains, grains, horticulture and livestock, and rests on three axes:
- structural investment in agricultural infrastructure and services;
- revision of sectoral policies to improve the business environment;
- more private investment to spur innovation and competitiveness.
The 2029 targets: food security, rice and cooperatives
By 2029 the compact aims to reach more than 90 percent food security at national level and to create 800,000 formal jobs in the agricultural sector. Its specific objectives include raising the cereal coverage rate from 48 percent to 78 percent, lifting rice self-sufficiency to 64 percent and establishing 100 community-based agricultural cooperatives across the country.
The rice target matters because of what Senegalese eat. A December 2024 country brief by the Global Information and Early Warning System (GIEWS) of the FAO called rice the most consumed cereal in the country; average retail prices of local and imported rice rose by 15 and 25 percent between December 2023 and May 2024. The same brief forecast the 2024 cereal harvest at 3.8 million tonnes, about 8 percent above the previous five-year average, and noted that nearly 519,000 people, about 3 percent of the population, were estimated to face acute food insecurity in the June to August 2024 lean season.
What the ministers and the World Bank said
"The AgriConnect Pact aims to concretely transform the lives of our populations," said Mabouba Diagne, Minister of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Livestock. "These are families that will be able to better feed their children, farmers who will see their incomes increase and stabilize, young people who will find jobs and a future in modern and profitable agriculture."
"What drives us in AgriConnect is the belief that Senegalese agriculture can feed Senegal, create opportunities for its youth, and become an engine of shared prosperity," said Ousmane Diagana, World Bank Vice President for Western and Central Africa. Ahmadou Al Aminou Lo, Minister of State in charge of monitoring the Senegal 2050 agenda, called AgriConnect "a model platform for structuring a pipeline of projects related to the National Transformation Agenda" and said results-based management was expected of every stakeholder.
Governance, partners and the World Bank's farm push
Governance sits with the Minister of State responsible for the 2050 agenda, while the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Livestock carries out the work through its Delivery Unit. A joint steering committee was to be set up for planning, coordination and monitoring, supported by the Technical Group of Partners. The compact was developed in consultation with IFAD, FAO, the World Food Programme, the French Development Agency, the African Development Bank, the Islamic Development Bank, JICA, GIZ, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Mastercard Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The compact sits within a wider World Bank Group agriculture drive. In October 2024 the Group said it would double its agri-finance and agribusiness commitments to $9 billion a year by 2030 and aim to mobilise a further $5 billion. Speaking at the AgriConnect flagship event of the World Bank-IMF Annual Meetings on October 14, 2025, President Ajay Banga said 500 million smallholders produce 80 percent of the world's food, yet fewer than one in ten have access to commercial finance.
Photo: Africa Rice Center / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Sources: World Bank, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO GIEWS)
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