Determined to usher in a brighter future for its roughly 18 million citizens, Senegal has recently unveiled a development plan designed to set it on a path toward realizing its full social and economic potential by 2050. As Senegal strives to realize those ambitions, the government recognizes that increasing the country’s resilience to natural hazards and climate change – including of the capital and largest city Dakar – will be critical to that effort. 

In partnership with Senegal,  the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) has been helping long-term resilience building in the West African country, including in Dakar. This support comes from both GFDRR’s main multi-donor trust fund and the Japan-World Bank Program for Mainstreaming Disaster Risk Management (Japan Program)—a dedicated initiative within GFDRR that reflects Japan’s global leadership in disaster risk management.

In particular, GFDRR and the Japan Program have supported several comprehensive flood risk assessments in greater Dakar which have painted a fuller picture of how national and local authorities can respond to the intensifying flood risks in the Senegalese capital.

The assessments have directly informed implementation of the Second Stormwater Management and Climate Change Adaptation Project for Senegal, which is supported by $290 million in financing from the World Bank’s International Development Association. Designed to reduce flood risk in peri-urban areas of Dakar as one of its key development objectives, as of April 2025, the project has protected 900 hectares in the Dakar region from flooding, benefiting over 150,000 people.

In view of data scarcity challenges, the technical team conducting the assessments turned to digital terrain modeling based on light detection and ranging technology to develop the comprehensive flood risk analysis spanning four peri-urban areas of Dakar.  The assessments subsequently identified areas affected by floods of different probabilities and provided valuable information about predicted flood depth and flow velocity. One sobering finding from the flood risk analysis was that 20 percent of critical infrastructure in the four peri-urban areas of greater Dakar covered by the analytical work are exposed to flooding. The flood risk analysis was subsequently validated in a series of field visits and workshops involving roughly 130 local stakeholders.

"The flood risk study is a game-changer for our territorial planning in the Greater Dakar region, which is key to preventing and managing floods. By clearly identifying high-risk areas, we can steer development away from danger zones and better protect people and their property."

Mouhamadou Bachir THIAW

Head of Territorial Planning Department
National Agency for Territorial Planning, Senegal

As part of the assessment, the team analyzed multiple scenarios to simulate investments in flood risk infrastructure and estimated the total investment needed to protect Dakar from flooding. When viewed on an annualized basis, the analysis revealed that required investment in flood risk infrastructure is considerably less than repairing the overall damage incurred from flooding. This has helped solidify the case for continued investment in flood resilience in Dakar by the Senegalese government.

Japanese expertise and experience played a key role in enabling and validating the assessments. In conducting the assessments, the technical team looked to prior work by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in analyzing flood risk in comparable urban environments. In addition, the team worked closely with a Japanese flood risk management specialist to help validate the findings of the flood risk analysis.

In addition to the Second Stormwater Management and Climate Change Adaptation Project for Senegal, the assessments are also informing the development of a range of strategic planning documents that will help greater Dakar chart a more resilient development path, including urban development plans, flood risk management plans, and a sustainable development plan. These plans cover four rapidly expanding urban areas of the Dakar region. For instance, the flood risk maps produced as part of the analysis, and digital resources used to produce them, have been provided to technical teams tasked with developing the above plans to enable quicker, more efficient analysis.

GFDRR and the Japan Program’s support for the comprehensive flood risk assessments in greater Dakar are only one part of a deepening partnership for resilience with Senegal. Between 2021 and 2023, GFDRR and the Japan Program supported the government in evaluating the factors that place school infrastructure in the country at risk from natural hazards, as well as in identifying opportunities for enhancing the resilience of school infrastructure.  Since 2023, GFDRR and the Japan Program have been working with Senegal to increase the capacity of the energy sector to mitigate climate impacts, including through the development of a climate adaptation plan which is expected to cover both short-term and medium-term measures.

This story adapts a previous results story.