Somewhere in Senegal’s Tambacounda region, a health post can run short of drugs, a school feeding programme can shrink and a mother can worry about another fuel price increase without knowing that decisions affecting all three may be tied to an economic programme negotiated far from her village.
Development Diaries reports that Senegal and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reached a staff-level agreement on 01 September for a three-year financing arrangement worth about $2.2 billion, covering the country’s 2026–2029 reform programme.
The agreement still requires approval by the IMF executive board, along with corrective action linked to the earlier misreporting of public finances and financing assurances from Senegal’s partners.
The programme comes after the discovery of previously undisclosed debt under the former administration, which pushed Senegal’s debt burden above 130 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and led the IMF to suspend its previous programme.
The new arrangement is tied to fiscal consolidation, stronger debt management, greater fiscal transparency and a debt treatment process.
But the programme’s fiscal measures can affect taxes, subsidies, public spending and social protection, while the IMF says it will protect vulnerable households and strengthen social safety nets.
So citizens should see the specific measures and safeguards before they are asked to live with their consequences.
Senegal has already shown how expensive hidden fiscal information can become, with the IMF saying an audit confirmed significant under-reporting of deficits and public debt between 2019 and 2023, including previously undisclosed liabilities.
The overall fiscal deficit then fell from 13.4 percent of GDP in 2024 to 6.4 percent in 2025, largely through spending rationalisation.
What did that adjustment mean for particular services? Which budgets absorbed the cuts? Which services were protected?
Those are questions citizens should be able to answer without needing an economics degree or a friend inside the Ministry of Finance.
The political context also shapes how the programme will be scrutinised. President Bassirou Faye dismissed Ousmane Sonko as prime minister in May, after which Sonko became president of the National Assembly with strong parliamentary backing, with Reuters reporting that the split between the two former allies created uncertainty around economic policy and the IMF negotiations.
A programme negotiated by the executive will eventually shape budgets and laws that require parliamentary scrutiny, while the public carries the cost of whatever choices are made. That makes the National Assembly more than a place where the final numbers are read aloud.
Citizens should see the key conditions attached to the programme, the debt treatment being negotiated and the protections proposed for essential services before implementation turns those documents into household realities.
The state also owes citizens an account of the hidden debt. The IMF has called for corrective measures and stronger safeguards to prevent a repeat of the misreporting, while the Court of Auditors’ findings exposed serious weaknesses in fiscal reporting.
The public should know what investigations followed, who was held responsible and what has changed to prevent another round of missing numbers.
Also, the social cost deserves the same attention, as rural households rely heavily on public health posts and schools; women heading households are more exposed when food, fuel and social protection costs rise, children can be pulled out of school when household budgets tighten, and persons with disabilities often depend more heavily on public services and assistance.
Young people facing limited economic opportunities also have fewer reasons to believe that fiscal adjustment will improve their lives if the adjustment arrives mainly as higher costs and fewer services.
Senegal’s constitution protects rights including health, education and participation in public affairs, while the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights protects rights to health and education.
The West African country has also ratified the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption, which includes commitments around access to information and public accountability.
So citizens do not need to wait until the IMF programme is approved to start asking questions.
Civil society organisations can demand that the government publish the programme’s key conditions and proposed social protections, while budget organisations can track what happens to health, education and social protection allocations as the reforms take effect.
As regards National Assembly members, they should be pressed to hold public hearings rather than leaving the programme to be understood only by officials, economists and creditors.
Journalists can ask the Cour des Comptes for the full findings on the hidden debt and follow what happened after those findings, while the Ministry of Economy and Finance can publish the programme documents and a clear assessment of its expected effects on households and essential services.
The IMF also has a role in making the arrangement understandable to the people expected to live with it, including publishing the staff report and programme conditions when the Board considers the request and clearly identifying safeguards for vulnerable households.
Senegal has already paid a high price for fiscal information that citizens could not see. This time, the public should not have to discover the terms of the deal through the price of food, transport, school fees or medicine.
