Photo by Michael Bucher

In March 2020, Sijh Diagne (MBA 2017) left his job as an investment banker in New York to move back to his native Senegal as an advisor to the minister of economy, planning, and cooperation. The position would entail developing the country’s private sector; expectations for the job, however, would soon change rapidly. “When I decided to take on that role, the world looked very different than it would later that spring,” says Diagne. “I had no idea that it would turn into a pandemic-response and economic-recovery role.” He took the last flight from the United States to Senegal before the two countries closed their borders.

Diagne’s first task was to work closely with the ministry’s leadership team in crafting an economic response to the pandemic. Worldwide, crisis management involved very similar challenges—layoffs and shutdowns, unemployment, and vaccine distribution—but Senegal was a developing country, with an emerging economy. Diagne needed his team to mitigate risks, protect the public’s health, and educate the population without losing ground on key initiatives that would continue to bolster Senegal’s economy, such as infrastructure investments and a booming agricultural industry.

The plan’s design was guided by several key outcomes: saving jobs; protecting businesses with liquidity and fiscal incentives; building tech infrastructure to support work-from-home initiatives; providing basic food and information to the most vulnerable populations; and securing the country with enough oil, gas, and food supplies, given supply chain disruptions. Important, too, was being mindful of budget deficits and encouraging investments from international partners. “We had to do it all purposefully, accurately, and quickly,” says Diagne.

Data drove their decisions as the team examined benchmarks on fiscal and monetary measures that were being implemented across the world. The team also consulted leading actors in the public and private sectors. “We received data from different ministries—tourism, infrastructure, transportation, and fishing, for example—detailing the impact on their respective sectors and possible solutions,” says Diagne. The discussions with the public and private sectors were instrumental in creating an inclusive mechanism and enabled Diagne to quickly grasp the country’s realities.

After less than a month of deliberation, the government of Senegal, through the ministry’s work, launched a $1.3 billion economic resilience plan, representing 7 percent of GDP, the second largest in Africa (second to South Africa). Senegal was one of the first African countries to come up with a resiliency plan. It included all the necessary health support for patient treatment and contact tracing, including procurement of all supplies of oxygen and medical equipment; support for the private sector and employment; distribution of food kits and food stamps to more than 1 million households; and water and electricity payments for a portion of the population. The strategy also included a financing and guarantee mechanism that would provide additional liquidity to companies, for payment of salaries and other fixed costs.

Diagne was head of the guarantee committee that reviewed all financing requests. The work of the committee injected liquidity in the system, to preserve more than 20,000 jobs during the pandemic. The plan garnered more than $800 million in support from the IMF, the World Bank, and development finance institutions such as the African Development, the Islamic Development Bank, and the G50 of the United Nations. Senegal’s private sector also contributed $30 million to the plan.

Such evidence-based methods proved very effective at buoying the nation. Its economy—though already growing at 6 percent prior to the pandemic—grew 1.3 percent during the worst of the crisis. The experience of watching Senegal weather such a trying storm made Diagne even more bullish on the continent’s future. “Today, Africa is home to 1.4 billion people. By 2050, it will be home to 2.5 billion people, mostly youth. So there are some strong tailwinds to enable it to be the next frontier of growth and investment,” he says.

Diagne’s work now focuses on crafting Senegal's post-pandemic economic recovery plan and an emergency youth-jobs plan; working with the country’s health ministry to set up a local vaccine manufacturing plant; securing vaccines for the country; helping to obtain concessional financing, especially leveraging Special Drawing Rights (international reserve assets that supplement a country’s official reserves); and negotiating agreements to fund some of flagship projects laid out in the 2019–2023 Priority Action Plan, a development model that supports growth through economic and social policy.

“We are focusing on food, health, and pharmaceutical sovereignty as key priorities,” Diagne explains. Senegal also wants to boost tourism now that many countries have reopened their borders. The tertiary sector, which took a strong hit through the pandemic, still accounts for more than 40 percent of GDP; Diagne and his team see plenty of opportunities with Senegal’s beaches and islands, national parks, and historic and religious sites.

Indeed, the work Diagne is doing today will carry Senegal forward for generations to come. “We have to think outside the box, acknowledge different perspectives, and ask the right questions, he declares, “putting ourselves in the shoes of the people we’re serving.”

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