REFT Africa
Analysis notes
Signed essays, distinct from our evaluation assignments. They commit their author, not our clients, and address the debates under way in Senegal on agricultural and food policy, on public finances and on climate finance.
August 2026 · Analysis note 12 pages
Financing climate action under a debt constraint: Senegal between NDC 3.0 and fiscal crisis
Baitir Ndoye, Ph.D. · PEFA-certified evaluator · REFT Africa
In December 2023, a technical note described a climate architecture under rapid construction, and implicitly bet that the framework would precede the resources. Three years on, the architecture has consolidated — and the resources have vanished. NDC 3.0 nearly doubles the emissions reduction target, while the IMF's resilience window lies dormant, the Just Energy Transition Partnership has produced no documented disbursement and the sovereign green bond remains unissued. The note sets CFAF 412.6 billion of energy subsidies against CFAF 1.7 billion of environmental tax revenue.
August 2026 · Analysis note 12 pages
Senegal's public debt after the statistical revision shock
Baitir Ndoye, Ph.D. · PEFA-certified evaluator · REFT Africa
In July 2023, a technical note concluded that Senegal's central issue was not solvency but the shrinking of fiscal space. Three years on the diagnosis has been vindicated, but by a route nobody anticipated: it was not only the projections that were fragile, it was the data themselves. The note picks up the 2023 thread, sets it against the Court of Auditors' audit, the debt statistics bulletin of 14 July 2026 and the 2027-2029 DPBEP, and examines what a forty-four point gap in GDP terms reveals about the debt management framework.
August 2026 · Analysis note 6 pages
Who steers public financial management reform in Senegal?
Baitir Ndoye, Ph.D. & Serigne Amadou Sèye · REFT Africa
In March 2023, a note recorded the dormancy of the national steering framework established under the WAEMU directives: a national committee that no longer met regularly, irregular technical committees, a capacity gap between the Ministry of Finance and line ministries, and an information system left undeployed. Three years on, the finding still holds but the framework has changed in nature: the 2013 order has been neither repealed nor replaced — it has been bypassed. Strategic coordination now runs through a committee attached to the fiscal transparency programme, its agenda structured by World Bank disbursement-linked indicators and IMF corrective measures. The note argues that Senegal has substituted governance by conditionality for governance by mandate.
July 2026 · Situation note 3 pages
The unsold local rice glut in the Senegal River Valley, and the role of public procurement
Baitir Ndoye, Ph.D. · PEFA-certified evaluator · REFT Africa
In June 2026, some 335,000 tonnes of rice and paddy remained unsold in the Senegal River Valley, including more than 35,000 tonnes of milled white rice — at the very moment the sector was breaking production records. The note establishes the state of stocks, identifies the three causes of the glut, and examines what public procurement could absorb.
July 2026 · Public policy note 6 pages
Eating quality, nutritional value and competitiveness of local rice: moving beyond the seed myth
Baitir Ndoye, Ph.D. · PEFA-certified evaluator · REFT Africa
“Our seeds are no match for Thai rice” — the dominant narrative shifts responsibility onto varietal breeding, whereas the competitiveness gap is decided downstream. The note compares starch profiles, revisits the sensory question, and proposes reopening the file where it is actually settled: milling, grading and presentation.
July 2026 · Analysis note 7 pages
Creating State farms on the national domain: land availability and food sovereignty
Baitir Ndoye, Ph.D. · PEFA-certified evaluator · REFT Africa
Senegal covers 19.7 million hectares, of which 3.8 million are arable — and sows only 2.4 to 2.5 million a year. On paper the reserve exceeds a million hectares, and 95 % of land falls under the national domain. The note tests that argument against the real potential of the North and other regions, and quantifies an impact scenario.
March 2023 · Situation note 3 pages
The steering framework for budget and financial reforms in Senegal
Serigne Amadou Sèye · Public finance expert
Ten years after the 2013 order that established it, where does the framework for steering the reforms arising from the 2009 WAEMU directives stand? The note reviews the operational status of each body — the national steering committee, the sectoral technical committees, the PCRBF — and records a lost regularity of meetings, lethargy in the organizational adaptation committee, a capacity gap between the Ministry of Finance and line ministries, and the absence of a permanent channel for raising difficulties. It closes by setting that diagnosis against the action plan of the 2022-2027 reform strategy.
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