Six landing sites in Casamance: ex-ante evaluation of a fisheries programme

The question

The programme plans to rehabilitate and build six fisheries sites in the Ziguinchor region — landing quays, landing areas, roads, artisanal processing areas, and a full cold chain: ice plants, cold rooms, refrigerated trucks. Total cost: 12.46 billion FCFA, over a ten-year horizon.

An ex-ante evaluation does not ask whether a project is desirable — everyone agrees on that. It asks whether the expected benefits justify the spending, at the community's prices, and whether the facility can live on once the donors have gone.

One assumption that changes everything

The preliminary design assumed volumes would grow 10 % a year. We did not adopt it. The FAO/CECAF working group establishes that small pelagic stocks are overfished, and the Dakar-Thiaroye oceanographic research centre measured a 7.6 % fall in national landings between 2020 and 2021.

We therefore modelled a constant regional catch — 74,754 tonnes a year, at unchanged fishing effort. All modelled growth comes from two levers, and two only: the capture rate, meaning the share of fish passing through formal infrastructure rather than across the beach, rising from 24.1 % to 40 % over ten years; and the post-harvest loss rate, cut from 20 % to 5 % in five years.

The result: marketable tonnage rises from 14,413 to 28,407 tonnes — nearly 14,000 tonnes gained a year by year ten, without a single extra fish taken from the water. The design's +10 % target was reclassified as a project objective and as the ceiling of the high scenario, not as a forecast.

Two viewpoints, never conflated

The method used is that of reference prices, in line with the Planning Directorate's evaluation guide: elimination of pure transfers — VAT, customs duties, subsidies — then integration of externalities. Discount rate of 9 %, inflation of 3 %, ten-year horizon, assumed precision of ±20 %.

The assessment was carried out over two complementary perimeters, broken down site by site — twelve evaluation files in all. The value-chain perimeter answers the community's question: does this programme create value for Senegal? The operator perimeter answers the manager's: does the facility cover its costs?

These are two different questions, and they commonly receive different answers.

What we found

The programme is economically justified

At value-chain level, economic net present value reaches 226.7 billion FCFA, for an economic rate of return of 105.6 % and a benefit-cost ratio of 1.68.

Each franc invested at reference prices generates around 1.68 francs of socio-economic benefit.

The result holds across every adverse scenario tested. Even combining a 15 % rise in operating costs, a 20 % fall in revenue and a 15 % rise in investment, the rate of return stays at 19.7 % — more than double the opportunity cost of capital.

The value goes first to the fishers

Over ten years, cumulative net impact is very unevenly distributed: 299.9 billion for the 1,635 artisanal fishers, 21.4 billion for fish traders, 2.3 billion for the 915 women processors. The programme targets the creation and consolidation of some 980 direct jobs.

But the facility does not pay for itself

This is the evaluation's most useful finding, and its least comfortable. A correction requested during the assignment changed the picture considerably: the landing fee can only apply to fish that actually passes through the quay — 18,016 tonnes in year one, not the region's 74,754 tonnes.

A quay can only levy a fee on the fish that actually passes through it.

With that correction, operations do not cover costs, in any scenario tested. The sensitivity analysis points clearly to the lever: a 20 % change in investment shifts the result by billions, whereas an equivalent change in tariffs shifts it by only a few hundred million. The problem is one of sizing, not pricing.

An imbalance between sites

Kafountine accounts for 56.2 % of the region's landings for 13.2 % of the investment. At the other end, one site absorbs the programme's largest investment for 4.5 % of the tonnage. Per tonne landed, the gap between the most and least efficient site is one to twenty-seven.

What we recommended

1. Have the technical services and CRODT validate the capture and loss rates, currently estimated rather than measured
2. Establish a permanent maintenance allocation, durably budgeted — the most direct route
3. Review the sizing of works at the least-frequented sites
4. Pool management of the six landing sites in a single entity, so surpluses offset deficits
5. Secure land tenure through municipal deliberation before works begin

None of these orientations leads to dropping a site from the programme. The opinion is favourable to implementation, subject to settling a sustainable operating model before works are engaged.

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