Senegal ( ), officially the
Republic of
Senegal, is a country south of the
Sénégal River in western Africa.
Senegal is
bounded by the Atlantic
Ocean
to the west, Mauritania
to the north, Mali
to the east,
and Guinea
and Guinea-Bissau
to the south, and it also encircles The Gambia
on its three sides, except that of the Atlantic
Ocean.
Its size is almost 197,000 km² with an estimated population of
about 12.5 million.
Dakar
is the
capital city of Senegal, located on the
Cape Verde
Peninsula
on the country's Atlantic
coast. About a third of the population live below the
international poverty line of US$ 1.25 a day.
History
Archaeological findings throughout the area indicate that Senegal
was inhabited in prehistoric times.
Eastern Senegal was once part of the
Empire of Ghana. It was founded by the
Tukulor in the middle valley of the
Senegal River.
Islam, the
dominant religion in Senegal, first came to the region in the 11th
century. In the 13th and 14th centuries, the area came under the
influence of the empires to the east; the
Jolof Empire of Senegal also was founded during
this time.
Various European
powers—Portugal
, the
Netherlands
, and Great Britain
—competed for trade in the area from the 15th
century onward, until in 1677, France
ended up in
possession of what had become a minor slave
trade departure point—the infamous island of Gorée
next to modern Dakar. It was only in the
1850s that the French began to expand their foothold onto the
Senegalese mainland, at the expense of native kingdoms such as
Waalo,
Cayor,
Baol, and
Jolof. Senegalese
resistance to the French expansion was led in part by
Lat-Dior,
Damel (king) of
Cayor.
In January 1959 Senegal and the
French
Sudan merged to form the
Mali
Federation, which became fully independent on 20 June 1960, as
a result of the independence and the transfer of power agreement
signed with France on 4 April 1960. Due to internal political
difficulties, the Federation broke up on August 20.
Senegal and Sudan
(renamed the Republic of Mali) proclaimed
independence. Léopold
Senghor was proclaimed Senegal's first president in September
1960. Senghor was a very well read and highly educated man. He was
a poet, a philosopher and personally drafted the Senegalese
national anthem, "Pincez tous vos koras frappez les balafons". As
such he was not really a politician but was handed the presidency
by the French authorities who saw in him a brilliant and peaceful
man and not a revolutionary like Ahmed Sekou Toure of the
neighboring Guinea
Later after the breakup of the Mali Federation, President Senghor
and Prime Minister
Mamadou Dia governed
together under a parliamentary system. Senghor always feared his
Prime Minister who was a very charismatic figure and a hard liner.
In December 1962 he accused him of an attempted coup and Dia was
wrongfully convicted of treason and briefly jailed.Senegal adopted
a new constitution that consolidated the president's power.In 2006,
the current president
Abdoulaye Wade
vacated the conviction and bestowed upon him a Medal of Honor. In
1980 President Senghor decided to retire from politics, and he
handed power over in 1981 to his handpicked successor,
Abdou Diouf. Mamadou Dia ran for reelection in
1983 against Aboud Diouf but lost.Senghor moved to France where he
later died at the age of 96 having had been married to a French
woman
Senegal
joined with The
Gambia to form the nominal confederation of Senegambia on 1 February
1982. However, the union was dissolved in 1989.
Despite peace talks, a
southern separatist group in the Casamance
region had clashed sporadically with government
forces since 1982. Senegal has had a long history of
participating in international peacekeeping.
Abdou Diouf was president between 1981 and 2000. He encouraged
broader political participation, reduced government involvement in
the economy, and widened Senegal's diplomatic engagements,
particularly with other developing nations.
Domestic politics on
occasion spilled over into street violence, border tensions, and a
violent separatist movement in the southern region of the Casamance. Nevertheless, Senegal's commitment to
democracy and human rights strengthened. Diouf served four terms as
president.
In the presidential election of 1999, opposition leader
Abdoulaye Wade defeated Diouf in an election
deemed free and fair by international observers. Senegal
experienced its second peaceful transition of power, and its first
from one political party to another.
On 30 December 2004
President Abdoulaye Wade announced
that he would sign a peace treaty with the separatist group in the
Casamance region. This, however, has yet to be
implemented. There was a round of talks in 2005, but the results
did not yet yield a resolution.
Politics
Senegal is a republic with a presidency; the president is
elected every five years as of 2001,
previously being seven years, by universal adult
suffrage. The current president is
Abdoulaye Wade, re-elected in March
2007.
Senegal has more than 80
political
parties. The
bicameral parliament
consists of the
National
Assembly, which has 120 seats, and the Senate, which has
100 seats and was reinstituted in 2007. An independent
judiciary also exists in Senegal. The nation's highest courts that
deal with business issues are the constitutional council and the
court of justice, members of which are named by the
president.
Currently Senegal has a democratic political culture, being one of
the more successful
post-colonial
democratic transitions in Africa. Local administrators are
appointed by, and responsible to, the president. The
marabouts, religious leaders of the various
Senegalese
Muslim
brotherhoods, also exercise a strong political influence in the
country. In 2009, however,
Freedom
House downgraded Senegal's status from 'Free' to 'Partially
Free', based on increased centralisation of power in the
executive.
In 2008, Senegal finished in 10th position on the
Ibrahim Index of African
Governance. The Ibrahim Index is a comprehensive measure of
sub-Saharan African governance, based on a number of different
variables which reflect the success with which governments deliver
essential political goods to its citizens.
[4515] In
2009, Senegal's ranking slipped substantially, to 17th place;
however, this is partially accounted for by the addition of
Northern African nations to the rankings.
Geography
Senegal is located on the west of the
African
continent. The Senegalese landscape consists mainly of the
rolling sandy plains of the western
Sahel
which rise to foothills in the southeast.
Here is also found
Senegal's highest point, an otherwise unnamed feature near Nepen Diakha
at . The northern border is formed by the
Senegal River, other rivers include
the Gambia
and Casamance Rivers. The capital Dakar
lies on the Cap-Vert peninsula, the westernmost point of continental
Africa.
The local
climate is
tropical with well-defined dry and humid
seasons that result from northeast winter winds and southwest
summer winds. Dakar's annual
rainfall of
about occurs between June and October when maximum temperatures
average ; December to February minimum temperatures are about .
Interior temperatures can be substantially higher than along the
coast, and rainfall increases substantially farther south,
exceeding annually in some areas. The far interior of the country,
in the region of Tambacounda, particularly on the border of Mali,
temperatures can reach as high as .
The
Cape
Verde
islands lie some off the Senegalese coast, but Cap
Vert
("Cape Green") is a maritime placemark, set at the
foot of "Les Mammelles" , a cliff resting at one end of the
Cap
Vert peninsula onto which is settled Senegal's capital
Dakar, and south of the "Pointe des Almadies", the western-most
point in Africa.
Administrative divisions
Regions of Senegal
Senegal is subdivided into 14 regions, each administered by a
Conseil Régional (
Regional
Council) elected by population weight at the
Arrondissement level. The country is further subdivided by
34
Départements, 103
Arrondissements (neither of
which have administrative function) and by
Collectivités
Locales, which elect administrative officers.
Regional capitals have the same name as their respective
regions:
Major cities
Senegal's capital of Dakar is by far the largest city in Senegal,
with over two million residents. The second most populous city is
Touba, a
de
jure communaute rurale (rural community), with
half a million.
| City |
Population (2005) |
Dakar (Dakar
proper, Guédiawaye , and Pikine ) |
2,145,193 |
| Touba (Touba Mosquee) |
475,755 |
Thiès |
240,152 |
Kaolack |
181,035 |
M'Bour |
170,875 |
Saint-Louis |
165,038 |
Rufisque |
154,975 |
Ziguinchor |
153,456 |
Economy
In January 1994 Senegal undertook a bold and ambitious economic
reform program with the support of the international donor
community. This reform began with a 50 percent devaluation of
Senegal's currency, the
CFA franc, which was
linked at a fixed rate to the former
French
franc and now to the
euro. Government price
controls and subsidies have been steadily dismantled.
After seeing its economy retract by 2.1 percent in 1993,
Senegal made an important turnaround, thanks to the reform program,
with real growth in
GDP
averaging 5 percent annually during the years 1995–2001.
Annual
inflation was reduced to less than
1 percent, but rose again to an estimated 3.3 percent in
2001. Investment increased steadily from 13.8 percent of GDP
in 1993 to 16.5 percent in 1997.Thanks to this, Senegal's
economy is starting to be one of the fastest growing in the
world.
The main industries include
food
processing,
mining,
cement,
artificial
fertilizer,
chemicals,
textiles,
refining imported
petroleum, and
tourism.
Exports include fish, chemicals, cotton, fabrics,
groundnuts, and
calcium phosphate, and the principal
foreign market is India at 26.7 percent of exports (as of
1998). Other foreign markets include the US, Italy, and the
UK.
As a member of the
West African Economic
and Monetary Union (WAEMU), Senegal is working toward greater
regional integration with a unified external
tariff. Senegal is also a member of the
Organization
for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa (
OHADA).
Senegal realized full
Internet connectivity
in 1996, creating a mini-boom in
information technology-based
services. Private activity now accounts for 82 percent of GDP.
On the negative side, Senegal faces deep-seated urban problems of
chronic high
unemployment,
socioeconomic disparity, and
juvenile delinquency .
Demographics
Population in Senegal, 1962–2004
Senegal has a population of over 11 million, about
42 percent of whom live in rural areas. Density in these areas
varies from about in the west-central region to in the arid eastern
section.
According to the
World Refugee Survey 2008, published by
the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, Senegal has a
population of
refugees and asylum seekers
numbering approximately 23,800 in 2007.
The majority of this
population (20,200) is from Mauritania. Refugees live in
N'dioum,
Dodel, and small
settlements along the
Senegal River
valley.
Ethnicity
Senegal has a wide variety of ethnic groups and, as in most West
African countries, several languages are widely spoken. The
Wolof are the largest single ethnic
group in Senegal at 43 percent; the
Peul
and
Toucouleur (also known as Halpulaar,
Fulbe or Fula) (24 percent) are the second biggest group,
followed by others that include the
Serer
(15 percent),
Lebou (10 percent),
Jola (4 percent),
Mandinka (3 percent),
Maures or
Naarkajors,
Soninke,
Bassari and
many smaller communities (9 percent). (See also the
Bedick ethnic group.)
About
50,000 Europeans (mostly French) and Lebanese as well as smaller numbers of
Mauritanians
and Moroccans
reside in Senegal, mainly in the cities. The
majority of Lebanese work in commerce. Also located primarily in
urban settings are small
Vietnamese communities as
well as a growing number of
Chinese immigrant traders, each
numbering perhaps a few hundred people.
From the
time of earliest contact between Europeans and Africans along the
coast of Senegal, particularly after the establishment of coastal
trading posts during the fifteenth century, communities of mixed
African and European (mostly French and Portuguese) origin have thrived. Cape Verdean migrants and their
descendants living in urban areas and in the Casamance region represent another recognized community of
mixed African and European background.
French is the official language,
used regularly by a minority of Senegalese educated in a system
styled upon the colonial-era schools of French origin (Koranic
schools are even more popular, but Arabic is not widely spoken
outside of this context of recitation). Most people also speak
their own ethnic language while, especially in Dakar,
Wolof is the
lingua
franca. Pulaar is spoken by the Peuls and Toucouleur.
Portuguese Creole is a prominent minority
language in Ziguinchor, regional capital of the Casamance, where some residents speak Kriol, primarily spoken in Guinea-Bissau. Cape Verdeans speak their native creole,
Cape Verdean Creole, and
standard
Portuguese.
Health
Public expenditure on health was at 2.4 % of the GDP in 2004,
whereas private expenditure was at3.5 %. Health expenditure was at
US$ 72 (PPP) per capita in 2004. The fertility rate was at about
5.2 in the early 2000s. There were 6 physicians per 100,000 persons
in the early 2000s.
Infant
mortality was at 77 per 1,000 live births in 2005.
Religion
Islam is the predominant religion, practiced
by approximately 95 percent of the country's population; the
Christian community, at 4 percent
of the population, includes
Roman
Catholics and diverse
Protestant
denominations. There is also a 1 percent population who
maintain
animism in their beliefs,
particularly in the southeastern region of the country.
Islam
Islamic communities are generally organized around one of several
Islamic
Sufi orders or brotherhoods, headed by
a
khalif (
xaliifa in
Wolof, from
Arabic khalīfa), who is usually a
direct descendant of the group’s founder.
The two largest and
most prominent Sufi orders in Senegal are the Tijaniyya, whose largest sub-groups are based in
the cities of Tivaouane
and Kaolack, and the Murīdiyya , based in
the city of Touba
. The
Halpulaar, a widespread ethnic group found
along the Sahel from Chad to Senegal, representing 20 percent
of the Senegalese population, were the first to convert to Islam.
The Halpulaar, composed of various
Fula
people groups, named
Peuls and
Toucouleurs in Senegal. Many of the
Toucouleurs, or sedentary Halpulaar of the Senegal River
Valley in the north, converted to Islam around a millennium ago and
later contributed to Islam's propagation throughout Senegal. Most
communities south of the Senegal River Valley, however, were not
thoroughly Islamized until the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries. During the mid-19th century, Islam became a banner of
resistance against the traditional aristocracies and French
colonialism, and Tijānī leaders
Al-Hajj Umar Tall and
Màbba Jaxu Ba established short-lived but
influential Islamic states but were both killed in battle and their
territories then annexed by the French.
The spread of formal Quranic school (called
daara in
Wolof) during the colonial period increased largely through the
effort of the Tijaniyya. In Murid communities, which place more
emphasis on the work ethic than on literary Quranic studies, the
term
daara often applies to work groups devoted to working
for a religious leader. Other Islamic groups include the much older
Qādiriyya order and the Senegalese
Laayeen order, which is prominent among the
coastal Lebu. Today, most Senegalese children study at
daaras for several years, memorizing as much of the Qur'an
as they can. Some of them continue their religious studies at
informal Arabic schools (
majlis) or at the growing number
of private Arabic schools and publicly funded Franco-Arabic
schools.
Bahá'í Faith
The
Bahá'í Faith in Senegal
begins after
`Abdu'l-Bahá, the son
of the founder of the religion, mentioned Africa as a place the
religion should be more broadly visited by Bahá'ís. The first to
set foot in the territory of
French
West Africa that would become Senegal arrived in 1953.
The first
Bahá'í Local Spiritual
Assembly of Senegal was elected in 1966 in Dakar. In
1975 the Bahá'í community elected the first
National Spiritual Assembly of
Senegal. The most recent estimate, by the
Association of Religion
Data Archives in a 2005 report details the population of
Senegalese Bahá'ís at 22,000. Bahá'ís claimed there are 34 local
assemblies in 2003.
Other religions
Small Roman Catholic communities are mainly found in coastal
Serer,
Jola,
Mankanya and
Balant populations, and in eastern Senegal among the
Bassari and
Coniagui. The Protestant churches are mainly
attended by immigrants but during the second half of the twentieth
century Protestant churches led by Senegales leaders from different
ethnic groups have evolved. In Dakar Catholic and Protestant rites
are practiced by the Lebanese, Capeverdian, European, and American
immigrant populations, and among certain Africans of other
countries as well as by the Senegalese themselves. Although Islam
is Senegal's majority religion, Senegal's first president,
Léopold Sédar Senghor, was a
Catholic Serer.
Animism is now less practiced. There aren't
sizable numbers of followers since this last 20 years. Meanwhile,
there are small numbers of adherents of
Judaism and
Buddhism.
Judaism is followed by members of several ethnic groups, while
Buddhism is followed by a number of Vietnamese.
Culture
Senegal's
musical heritage is better known
than that of most African countries, due to the popularity of
mbalax, which is a form of
Wolof percussive; it has been popularized by
Youssou N'Dour.
Sabar drumming is especially popular. The sabar is
mostly used in special celebrations like weddings. Another
instrument, the
tama, is used in more ethnic
groups. Other popular Senegalese musicians are Cheikh Lô, Orchestra
Baobab, Baba Maal, Thione Seck, Akon and Pape Diouf.
Education
Articles 21 and 22 of the Constitution adopted in January 2001
guarantee access to education for all children. Education is
compulsory and free up to the age of 16.The Ministry of Labor has
indicated that the public school system is unable to cope with the
number of children that must enroll each year.
Illiteracy is high, particularly among women. The
net primary enrolment rate was 69 % in 2005. Public expenditure on
education was 5.4 % of the 2002-2005 GDP.
See also
References
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