Ireland's relationship with Senegal
In January 2023, Ireland opened a new Embassy in Senegal as part of strategy to double the reach and impact of Ireland’s global footprint by 2025 and in line with Ireland’s Strategy for Africa to 2025. The new mission is Ireland’s 14th Embassy in Africa and first in francophone West Africa.
Ireland’s relationship with Senegal is built on the values of partnership and mutual respect. Our two countries share a strong friendship grounded in people-to-people links and development partnerships.
A shared history and values
Ireland and Senegal share a long history of positive bilateral relations, and as small global facing countries we share common points in our worldviews and in our national development contexts.
Both Ireland and Senegal are located at the most western of our respective continents and share an Atlantic perspective, a postcolonial history, a common experience of migration and close ties with our respective global diasporas.
We also share a passion for cultural heritage including in oral traditions and storytelling through song, poetry, cinema and literature.
Economic ties
Commercial links between Ireland and Senegal are well established, particularly in the dairy and agri-food sectors, with 85% of trade in goods between our two nations focused on these sectors.
There is ambition to increase the economic and trade links between our two countries in the years ahead, building on the current two-way trade in goods total of over €67 million annually.
Commitment to multilateralism
Both Ireland and Senegal are strong supporters of the global rules-based order. A commitment to multilateralism is central to our respective foreign policies.
We share long traditions of contributing troops to UN peacekeeping missions. Irish and Senegalese troops have served alongside one another in UN peacekeeping missions, including in Lebanon, Liberia and Mali. `
As a newly independent country, Ireland was a strong supporter of African countries’ right to self-determination at the UN in the 1950 and 1960s. More recently, Ireland has called for the reform of the multilateral system for greater justice and representation of African countries.
As an elected member of the UN Security Council in 2021-22, Ireland worked closely with African partners on the Security Council, in particular in support of African and sub-regional cooperation and integration.
Development cooperation
As a country that has historically experienced famine, Ireland has been a long-standing champion of global efforts to reduce hunger and starvation.
In January 2023, Ireland’s President, Michael D. Higgins, attended the Dakar II Summit on Food Security and outlined Ireland’s support for a strengthened international response to address the structural drivers of hunger and for the promotion of African food sovereignty and resilience.
Since opening our Embassy in 2023, Ireland has deepened its development cooperation in Senegal with new partnerships initiated supporting programmes in Senegal in the areas of food security, climate action and support to civil society, with a focus on gender and youth.
In 2023, the Embassy of Ireland also launched a Fellowship Programme that grants scholarships to young Senegalese students and professionals working to promote the SDGs to undertake a master’s degree at universities in Ireland. The first Senegalese Fellows selected under this programme travelled to Ireland in 2024 and it is expected that the programme will expand in the years ahead.