Senegal Overview
Each day, 963 million people around the world go hungry. We have a duty to ensure that all people have access to the food they need to sustain themselves and their families. This basic tenet helps guide our work to eradicate poverty in developing countries by bringing the voices of hungry people to the halls of power, where the policies that control the distribution of food and resources are made. This month, join ActionAid by learning about some of the crucial food rights work we are carrying out in Senegal.
Adama Mgane, 45, is the president of the local ground nut producers group in the Thiakho-Maty village. “Since we, the women of the village, got together to increase our production of peanut and start growing also vegetables and fruit, we manage to buy oil and rice at the market and better feed our family,” Adama said.
Copyright © Candace Feit/ActionAid
Senegal Farmers Work to Improve Peanut Crops
Senegal’s Quest to Balance Food Security Against Biofuels
Banana Flour Identified As Promising Commodity in Senegal
Senegal Water Project Alleviates Burden on Women
Obtaining its independence from France on April 4, 1960, Senegal today is by and large viewed as a stable democracy. Located in Western Africa, Senegal is boarded by The Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Mauritania and the Atlantic Ocean. French has remained the official language for the predominately Muslim nation. Despite strides the nation has made, the unemployment rate hovers around 48 percent and the male literacy rate holds at 51 percent, while it slips to 29 percent for women. These factors have, in part, left many locals in a daily struggle to obtain enough food to feed their families.
In 2006, ActionAid opened up shop in Senegal and today is working in six areas thoughout the country on a host of poverty-related issues including women’s rights and education.
A major portion of our effort revolves around working with Senegalese to ensure they have enough food to eat and clean drinking water available. The CIA labels the nation at “high risk” for contracting food and waterborne diseases such as bacterial and protozoal diarrhea, hepatitis A, typhoid fever and more.
Although it is estimated that 70 percent of the population works in agriculture it imports 60 percent of its food products. With these statistics and an eye toward hunger prevention, ActionAid is working with villages throughout Senegal on various projects related to water, food and biofuels. For example, we are working with poor farmers to hone their peanut production capacity and also looking at new, marketable food products such as banana flour that can be used to feed families and sold to earn a livelihood.
Please join ActionAid by learning about some of the exciting and critical projects we are working on in Senegal. We know it can be overwhelming when contemplating the challenges faced by poor people and communities around the world. It can be even more difficult to understand how you can have a role in solutions to global poverty.
But there is hope. With assistance from supporters and activists, ActionAid is making day-to-day life better for millions of the world’s poorest citizens while also working to eradicate the fundamental causes of poverty, project by project, policy by policy.
We can end poverty. Together, we can. Please join us.