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Senegal Debt-to-GDP Growth
Comparison of reported public debt as a percentage of GDP between 2023 and 2024 projections.
Primary Sources
Senegal’s President Takes Control of Debt Negotiations
The direct presidential intervention marks a stark pivot from Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko’s previous stance, in which he resisted IMF-proposed debt restructuring as a “disgrace.” However, the Iran conflict has since placed renewed strain on the country’s economy, necessitating a pragmatic recalibration and granting the IMF more bargaining power. Over the medium term, the outcome will shape Senegal’s economic stability, borrowing costs, and ability to manage external shocks such as rising energy prices tied to the Middle East conflict.
Senegal, Benin, Ivory Coast: The Shift in Figures. An Investigation into the Creation of Public Debt in West Africa
Sénégal, Bénin, Côte d’Ivoire : La bascule des chiffres. Enquête sur la fabrique de la dette publique en Afrique de l’Ouest In June 2023, the IMF reaffirmed its confidence in Senegal's fiscal trajectory by approving a $1.51 billion program under the Extended Credit Facility/Extended Payment Facility and $324 million through the Reform and Stability Facility (RSF), thus validating the authorities' commitments to fiscal discipline and fiscal consolidation. At that time, nothing foreshadowed the shock that would hit the country's public finances a few months later. Figures provided by the Senegalese authorities then placed public debt at around 74.4% of GDP. Markets continued to finance the Senegalese state, international partners maintained their programs, and in technical reports as well as in notes to investors, the country retained the image of an economy whose debt was still considered sustainable despite increasingly visible fiscal pressure. Then the figures changed. Like birds of ill omen, they outlined the contours of a completely different path. In February 2025, the Court of Auditors published an audit of public finance management between 2019 and March 2024. As the report unfolded, a different picture of Senegal's debt emerged: heavier, more opaque, riddled with insufficiently documented commitments and financial transactions whose accounting raised questions. The institution reported an outstanding debt reaching 99.67% of GDP at the end of 2023, far exceeding the levels previously presented in official budget documents. A few weeks later, the IMF itself acknowledged the existence of "serious deficiencies" in budgetary control mechanisms and in the transmission of public data in Senegal. Initial reassessments then put the central government's debt at over 105% of GDP. According to S&P Global Ratings, the country's debt now stands at nearly 118% of GDP. And behind this figure, another, broader, and more difficult-to-consolidate picture emerges. By incorporating commitments that were previously insufficiently considered, notably certain debts of public enterprises, arrears, and other liabilities identified during the audits, successive reassessments have gradually led to estimates significantly higher than the levels initially presented. Following the work of the Court of Auditors, additional audits, and discussions with the IMF, several estimates now place the debt at around 132% of GDP by the end of 2024 . Very quickly, the debt became the epicent...
Senegal Conference Targets Africa's Costly Debt Pricing Bias | NewsGhana
Senegal opened a two-day international conference Wednesday to confront the structural inequalities pushing Africa's sovereign borrowing costs well above its actual fiscal risk, as economists warn the continent pays a steep price not for what it owes but for how it is perceived.
Senegal president personally handling IMF debt talks, office says - CNBC Africa
DAKAR, May 12 (Reuters) – Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye is personally handling talks with the International Monetary Fund aimed at resolving a crisis stemming from the discovery in 2024 of previously unreported liabilities, his office ...
