CABRI and the Senegalese Ministry of Economy, Finance and Planning are implementing a pilot project on the use of country systems (UCS) in Senegal, with the support of the Effective Institutions Platform. A pre-dialogue was held between 2-4 September in Dakar, Senegal.

The purpose of the pre-dialogue was to reach common positions between the donor group and between government representatives on UCS in Senegal. These pre-dialogues also served to analyse and identify collectively the areas that are most conducive for greater use of country systems. The subsequent dialogue on UCS will then focus on these core areas.

The goal of this dialogue will be to improve aid effectiveness by strengthening the national capability of the Ministry of Economy, Finance and Planning and its key stakeholders to include official development assistance in the budgetary process, and to bring aid in line with the country’s strategic policies.

Despite great willingness to increase the use of local systems, as shown by data from the Paris Declaration Surveys of 2005-2010, data from the 2014 global partnership monitoring report indicate that this commitment is on the decline in Africa. The connection between the improvement of national systems and the disbursement of aid by using these systems is therefore not automatic. In this perspective, dialogue between the countries receiving aid and the donors is necessary in order to obtain concrete data on the various risk factors for the use of local systems. By creating a space of trust and understanding, these dialogues aspire to reach a common position regarding the expectations that the technical and financial partners and the partner countries have of each other.