The Rural Decentralization Support Project (PADMIR) aims to promote “ sustainable human development ” for people in 37 Rural Communities (RC) in the Kébémer and Kaffrine Departments2 by, on the one hand improving local governance, through better provision of local public infrastructures and services (PIS) and support changes to the decentralized planning and funding system and policies, and on the other hand by promoting the birth of local economic dynamics by supporting local economic investments.

The two immediate objectives, corresponding to the two PADMIR main components, were:

Component A: “Produce and document a noticeable improvement in delivering infrastructures and services in view of development in the RC, through a mechanism of decentralized funding supported by a local participative planning process”. To this objective was added the sub project “Local Economic Governance”, integrated to PADMIR in 2001 aiming to contribute to the birth of local economic dynamics.

Component B: “Supporting the Senegalese Government, through the instigation of a national political dialogue, in adopting concrete legal and regulatory measures to institutionalize and strengthen decentralized planning and funding for rural/local development”. Initially planned for a five-year period, PADMIR has been extended for 2 more years in 2004, following the recommendations made by the tripartite review, in order to encourage a dynamic of take over for the program.