The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has reached a staff-level agreement with Senegal on a new 36-month, $2.2 billion debt program to support the country’s economic and financial reforms from 2026 to 2029.
The agreement, announced by the IMF in a statement, follows the suspension of a previous $1.8 billion program after previously unreported government debt was discovered.
The new program is aimed at supporting Senegal’s economic and financial reform program and addressing concerns over the country’s past reporting of fiscal data.
But the IMF said Senegal would have to take “decisive corrective measures” to be able to support its request for a waiver linked to the misreporting of data.
The staff-level agreement is subject to approval by the IMF Executive Board before it can come into effect.
Senegal’s new government, which emerged after an opposition electoral victory, blamed the administration of former President Macky Sall for masking the true extent of the country’s fiscal challenges in 2024.
The IMF then suspended the $1.8 billion program agreed in 2023 pending further information and commitments from the new authorities.
The IMF said Senegal’s budget deficit in 2023 was 12.3 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), well above the 4.9 per cent reported by the previous government.
Following several IMF missions to review Senegal’s financial situation, discussions on a new program began in mid-October.
Senegal’s public sector debt was estimated at 132 per cent of GDP at the end of 2024, one of the most indebted countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
But the country’s overall fiscal deficit narrowed from 13.4 per cent of GDP in 2024 to 6.4 per cent in 2025, mainly due to spending rationalization, the IMF said in June.
According to global ratings agency S&P, Senegal has continued to finance much of its borrowing through the regional bond market, although this comes at a higher cost than financing from international financial institutions, development banks and governments.
The new IMF program also comes amid political disagreements between President Bassirou Diomaye Faye and former Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko over economic policy and relations with the Fund.
Faye fired Sonko as prime minister in May, but Sonko was subsequently elected speaker of the National Assembly, a role that could impede the government’s capacity to carry out IMF-supported reforms.
Faye has preferred a more conciliatory relationship with the IMF, while Sonko has opposed debt restructuring.
Moody’s last week cut Senegal’s long-term foreign-currency debt rating to Caa2 from Caa1, citing the country’s talks with the IMF.
