AfDB loans $5.2 million to Virtual University of Senegal

The African Development Bank (AfDB) Group and the Government of Senegal signed a loan agreement on 27 March 2014 in Dakar for $5.2 million (3.9 million units of account) to fund a project known as PAUVS: support for the Virtual University of Senegal. This brings to 13 the number of operations active in the bank's public investment portfolio in Senegal, which represents a net amount committed of nearly $356 million (230 million units of account). The document was co-signed by the Minister of the Economy and Finances, Amadou Ba, and by Mamadou Lamine N'Dongo, resident representative of the AfDB in Senegal. For Mr N'Dongo, "The PAUVS is a specific response to the issue of training for young people. It stresses intensive use of information and communications technologies, in cooperation with the job market." As a result, the project aims to contribute to more inclusive growth, represented by equality of treatment and opportunities. It is intended to give young people, male and female, who have passed their baccalaureate, equal access to further education that will lead to employment.  Project activities include establishing the Virtual University of Senegal (UVS) platform, in other words creating the UVS central office, as well as strengthening capacities and building and equipping five open digital spaces. These infrastructures will make it possible to reach young people in the suburbs of Dakar: Saint Louis to the north, Thies to the west, Kaolack to the centre-west and Ziguinchor to the south.  Eventually, the project should allow for the following: •       it will be possible to accept more than 6000 students every year; •       a 75% success rate in the final year, with 77% among female students in 2018; •       50% of UVS graduates will be able to find a decent job within 12 months of leaving, with that figure rising to 60% among female students in 2018.  The AfDB has been active in the education sector since 1986. It has funded five projects in Senegal for a total of $117.6 million (76 million units of account). Other ventures have included: •       building and equipping 12 local secondary schools, 8 secondary education colleges, 123 functional adult literacy centres and 2046 classrooms; •       providing 850,000 school books for elementary teaching, 4460 supplementary facilities and 20 school libraries. This provision of infrastructure, equipment and books has contributed to raising the gross rate of school attendance, to improving the school environment and to reducing the use of temporary premises.  Furthermore, within the framework of the support project for rural development in Casamance (PADERCA), the Bank has helped to build, rehabilitate and equip 180 classrooms in the regions of Ziguinchor and Kolda, in the south of the country. The total amount committed by the AfDB Group to Senegal since 1972 is almost $2 billion (1.27 billion units of account).]]>