Strengthening the City's Civil Society

In Dakar, civil society is dense and organized: neighborhood committees and councils, youth and women's associations, community health workers like the Badjenou Gokh, and local governance NGOs. Participation mechanisms exist but need to be strengthened. In Yoff, a district municipality of the capital, a commitment to open governance highlighted a lack of ownership of community projects due to insufficient fluid communication between the city hall, neighborhood committees, and citizens. It proposed participatory budgeting, updating the list of associations and their areas of expertise, accountability exercises, and digital tools to broaden participation. The NGO 3D (Democracy, Human Rights, Local Development), based in Dakar, helps citizen groups (women's associations, youth groups, health and education management committees) access public budgets and engage in dialogue with local authorities. At the national level, the National Commission of Civil Society Actors notes a deficit in dialogue, a blockage regarding budgetary information, and the difficulty for Senegalese NGOs to directly obtain funding. The European Union launched calls in 2022 and 2024 to strengthen civil society organizations, particularly those of youth and women. This mission mobilizes the diaspora to reinforce these actors in Dakar: financing neighborhood projects, providing skills (project management, governance, digital, health, education), building bridges with NGOs, universities, and donors, and supporting the professionalization of organizations, in conjunction with the City and its district municipalities.