Council of Ministers of April 12, 2023 The Council of Ministers was held this Wednesday, April 12, 2023 at the Palace of the Republic, under the chairmanship of the Head of State, His Excellency, Mr. Macky SALL. At the start of his communication, the President of the Republic addressed the acceleration of funding for the promotion of entrepreneurship. In this perspective, the Head of State insisted on the central place of Entrepreneurship in the socio-economic integration of women and young people; position strengthened by its initiative to set up various framework and financing mechanisms, with a view to supporting and promoting, in territorial equity, the entrepreneurial dynamics of young people and women. The President of the Republic hailed the action of all the public entities involved in the emergence of a national culture of entrepreneurship and urged the ministries and structures concerned to consolidate the synergy of their interventions in order to establish effective of the State in taking charge of the training, supervision and financing needs of the targets. In this regard, the Head of State asked the Prime Minister to finalize, before the end of May 2023, the process of unifying the information systems of public structures supporting entrepreneurship (DER/FJ, 3FPT, ANPEJ , APDA, FONGIP, PROMISE, FONAMIF, and the various funds for female entrepreneurship, etc.). In addition, the President of the Republic has indicated to the Government the need to continue efforts to transform the informal sector and to establish the implementation of a National Program for the Promotion of Entrepreneurship around objectives, means and a consensual timetable, integrating the specific actions of each actor concerned. In this momentum, the Head of State informed the Council of the holding, in June 2023, of a Presidential Council on Entrepreneurship, in order to further demonstrate his desire to make Senegal a reference country in subject of entrepreneurship. To this end, the President of the Republic has asked the Prime Minister to prepare with the public and private ecosystem of Entrepreneurship, this important meeting which falls within the framework of the materialization of Axis 1 of the Emerging Senegal Plan (PSE ). With regard to economic monitoring and the intensification of Senegal's industrial transformation, the Head of State recalled the need to consolidate our sovereignty in a number of sectors and branches of activity, given the global economic situation. and developments in the international financial system. Therefore, the President of the Republic reiterated the paramount importance of carrying out reforms and projects in order to accentuate the industrialization of Senegal. The Head of State was delighted with the significant progress made in the construction of special economic zones, agropoles and other specialized industrial sites in several localities of the country. In this momentum, the Head of State asked the Prime Minister and the Ministers in charge of Industry, Economy, Finance and Budget and Trade to strengthen economic monitoring and to accentuate the implementation of Senegal's Industrialization Strategy, of which he will chair the evaluation of the actions undertaken, during the first meeting of the Presidential Council for Industrialization scheduled for May 2023. Returning to the scientific equipment of universities and public research establishments , the President of the Republic took the opportunity to insist on the role of pillar of the emergence of the higher education sector. To this end, the Head of State recalled his decision, of August 2013, following national consultations on higher education and research, to reorient our education system towards STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) to ensure the optimal and sustainable development of the national human capital, in accordance with the PSE. In this regard, the President of the Republic has asked the Minister of Higher Education, Research and Innovation to assess the impacts and results of this major transformation of the higher education system, within the framework application of the LMD reform. In addition, the Head of State invited the Minister of Higher Education, Research and Innovation and the Minister in charge of Industry to finalize the alignment of the national industrialization strategy with the draft ten-year national strategic plan for research and innovation which will soon be examined by the Council of Ministers. On this subject, the President of the Republic stressed the imperative of consolidating research and development activities in Senegal to establish an emerging economy supported by an innovative and efficient industry, before informing the Council that he will proceed, this Thursday, April 13 in Diamniadio, to the provision of universities and public research institutions, a large batch of latest generation scientific equipment. With regard to the social climate, the management and monitoring of internal affairs, the President of the Republic returned to: the preventive management of disputes and social stability in the artisanal fishing sub-sector: by indicating to the Government the urgency of a rapid and inclusive assessment of the application of the Fisheries Code, but also of the functionality of the committees and local consultation frameworks relating to artisanal fishing, in view of the recurrence of disputes involving fishermen and populations nationals of Kayar, Mboro and Guet Ndar. In this context, the Head of State asked the Prime Minister and the Minister of Fisheries and Maritime Economy to continue efforts to raise awareness among the actors involved, with a view to: (i) deploying national solidarity with the injured and reported victims; (ii) sustainably establish the peaceful coexistence of small-scale fisheries stakeholders, in scrupulous respect for the rule of law and the Fisheries Code; accessibility to populations of quality electronic communications services: by asking the Minister of Communication, Telecommunications and the Digital Economy to ensure, in conjunction with all the stakeholders (user and consumer associations, operators of telephony, regulator, etc.), to the sustainable control of Internet access costs, in the face of the reported increase in certain prices. In his communication, the Prime Minister returned to the follow-up of the coordination of governmental activity by evoking: the meeting with technical and financial partners; the inter-ministerial council on the preparation of the agricultural campaign; the interdepartmental meeting on the preparation of the rainy season and the management of floods. Appreciating the conclusions of the Interministerial Council on Agriculture, the President of the Republic has decided to allocate an exceptional and historic budgetary allocation of 100 billion CFA francs to the 2023-2024 agricultural campaign, in order to strengthen the food sovereignty policy. IN RESPECT OF COMMUNICATIONS FROM MINISTERS the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Senegalese Abroad made a communication on the international situation; the Minister of Agriculture, Rural Equipment and Food Sovereignty gave an update on the monitoring of the 2022/2023 groundnut marketing campaign and exports of horticultural products. IN RESPECT OF LEGISLATIVE AND REGULATORY TEXTS The Council examined and adopted: the draft decree on the organization of the Ministry of Women, the Family and the Protection of Children. Release date 2023-04-12