Development in Senegal: A difficult development despite numerous assets

Résumé du document

Presently, Senegal is one of the most important economies in Western Africa and, after the political issues in Côte d'Ivoire and Nigeria, one of the few countries which can reach the goals of the UN Millennium project in 2015. Nevertheless, we have here the example of a long-term low economic growth in spite of good initial conditions, and which were better than that of China's. For instance, we will see how one of the first independent countries in Africa wasn't able to take advantage of a lot of assets which are lacking in the other African countries. By choosing this country, we will study the different possibilities for an African developing country in terms of development, and the role that it has to play in the current context of globalization.

Extraits

[...] Consciously or not, the developed countries hold back the developing countries in a state of underdevelopment to take advantage better of their resources. The dependency theory can be divided in two schools: the Classical Dependency Theory led by Andre Gunder FRANCK and the Dependent Development Theory led by Fernando Henrique CARDOSO. (Source: Wikipedia English “Dependency Theory”, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dependency_Theory) This article gives a general definition of the dependency theory but don't explain really the difference between each school that's why it is more important to study the texts of both leaders of each school. [...]

[...] There are also some tensions with Guinea-Bissau and Gambia, with which Senegal created the Senegambia from 1981 to 1989; but, in general, Senegal has quite good relations with its neighbours. In 2000, the PDS's candidate, Adboulaye Wade won the presidential election and became the first liberal President, thank to the support of an important coalition. In spite of a quite peaceful beginning, since 2005, there are some political tensions. We can explain that by the beginning of the campaigns for the presidential elections of 2007 but also due to some legislative measure in 2005 such as a law which amnesties the political crimes happened between 1983 and 2004 or the gathering of the legislative and presidential elections. [...]

[...] Like all the African countries, Senegal is led by small but powerful elite. The problem with these elite is that, often, it prefers to think about its interest instead of the country's interest. This mentality has a lot of bad effects for the Senegalese development but we will focus on the two biggest: the international financial aid which became a financial debt and the corruption which harms the Senegalese economy and politics. Senegal is one of the worldwide countries which received and continues receiving a lot of international aid. [...]

[...] We can see here some issue provided by the dependency. For instance, the corruption issue corresponds to the internal factor of underdevelopment mentioned in the Cardoso's theory. Nevertheless, Morisset talks about the current aspects of Senegal but he doesn't explain the roots of the issues. I think it's important to know that if we want to prevent from doing the same errors. Moreover, he doesn't talk about Senegal in a world context. With this text we can't know the Senegalese policy about the international trade and its role in the globalization. [...]

[...] Nevertheless, the colonization was the beginning of the Senegalese dependency vis-à-vis France. The pivot of that economy was the Groundnut which was really important for the Europe and especially for France. The exportation of this agricultural product soared from 25,000 tonnes in 1887 to 892,000 in 1960. But this agricultural raw material was especially produced for the Europe and thus Senegal became dependent on the Europe market. Moreover, during this time, the French investment was really important to develop the economy and it increased after the second war with the creation of the FIDES (Fund for the Investment and the Economic and Social Development of the overseas territories). [...]