Wade wants Diamniado Platform to focus poverty elimination

Dakar, Senegal, 03/04 - Senegal plans to use the proposed Diamniado Platform set to have $500 million funding under the US Millennium Account (MCA) project to focus on eliminating poverty in the country, Senegal`s president, Abdoulaye Wade said here.

In a speech Thursday during a presidential council meeting on the Millennium Challenge Account and the Diamniadio Platform`s development plan and economic impact, Wade said that through the creation of a new economic hub, Senegal intends step up the fight against poverty to its total "elimination".

"Poverty reduction is good, but its eradication is even better. Senegal has opted for its elimination and we intend to do it through the Diamniadio Platform project which is expected to directly benefit the community", president Wade affirmed.

The proposed project, which aims at creating a new economic and investment hub, was introduced by Senegal following the decision by the US to redirect its development assistance destined to poor countries through the setting up of the Millennium Challenge Account initiative, covering 16 countries, including Senegal.

As the MCA is essentially focused on the fight against poverty in countries with a positive history in terms of political stability, democracy and good governance by promoting the fight against poverty and stimulating growth, Senegal seized the opportunity offered to present a new project.

The Diamniadio Platform, to be established on an area of 2,620 hectares, has the ambition to take full responsibility for the "national strategy to combat poverty" and accelerate growth.

US parliamentarians who recently visited Senegal and assessed the progress made on the project, described it as not viable, especially because the necessary infrastructure (highways, bridges, ports, etc.) to allow movements between the area and Dakar, 32 km away, were lacking.

The proposed toll highway between Dakar and Diamniadio, which provides for the construction of eight structures, including traffic interchanges, was the first stage in the advancement of the project. The works also involve the construction of the new Blaise Diagne International Airport, at Ndiass, some 42-km from Dakar, near Diamniadio.