The COVID-19 outbreak has taken a drastic human toll, and the economic and social impacts of the pandemic are reverberating globally. In its efforts to help countries in West Africa address the healthcare outbreak and transition to recovery, the WACOMP deployed a national component in Senegal.

The MSME Resilience and Recovery Programme (P2R) was developed to contribute to the economic and social response against the COVID-19 pandemic in Senegal. It aims to tackle the difficulties encountered by Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) that suffered from harsh economic conditions due to the pandemic.

The main objective of the P2R is to support the operationalization of the Economic and Social Resilience Programme (PRES) dedicated to enterprises as well as the Emerging Senegal Programme (PSE) Post-COVID, considering the identified priority sectors.

The specific objective of the project is to support the resilience of MSMEs and their employees to the COVID-19 crisis and to initiate a rapid and sustainable recovery in sectors such as accommodation and restaurants, transport, fishing, and fish farming, the pharmaceutical industry, and the agri-food industry. The P2R has three components:

1. Capacity building of at least two hundred (200) local MSMEs (of which at least 30% of enterprises led by women and 20% by young people) in the agri-food, health care and other sectors identified as priorities, to improve production processes and adopt standards and technical regulations to meet local demand and for export to the ECOWAS sub-region.
2. Upgrading of five (5) laboratories is supported to help them adapt to the health crisis.
3. Support technological innovation to develop the means to fight the pandemic by adopting the necessary processes and equipment/materials.

The three-year project is a EUR 2 million initiative funded by the European Union. It will be implemented by UNIDO and will run from April 2021 to March 2024.