🧩 The Challenge
The people of Dakar, the capital of Senegal, have long struggled with chronic traffic congestion, dangerous roads, heavy air pollution, and high greenhouse gas emissions. These issues affect both city residents’ quality of life and Dakar’s economy. To address these problems, Senegal’s government is overhauling Dakar’s transport to make it more affordable and accessible, with an emphasis on reducing carbon emissions. A key element of this strategy is the Dakar Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Pilot Project (P172342), which is set to become a model for other cities in Africa.
🛠️ The Intervention
The Dakar BRT project aims to enhance urban links Dakar and Guédiawaye via an 18.3- kilometer corridor. It is the first fully electric BRT line in Africa, serves up to 300,000 passengers daily, and cuts travel time from Dakar to Guédiawaye from 95 to 45 minutes. The Dakar BRT project is designed to attract both female passengers and female workers. It focuses on women’s safety and aims to meet their travel needs; it also commits to raising the percentage of female BRT employees from a baseline of 6% to 25% over the next five years. This is part of the government’s plan for a public transport workforce that is split equally between men and women. Safety, well-lit stations, surveillance cameras, and broader, protected sidewalks were paramount in the BRT corridor design. Other safety features include CCTV surveillance and mirror system across stations and buses, having a dedicated police, and using community awareness campaigns and clearly defined protocols to address harassment. As of October 2024, the BRT network reported a low rate of 3.51 crimes per million passengers.
🏗️ Implementation Challenges and Successes
The Dakar BRT project encountered challenges because of deep-rooted gender disparities in transport. Finding and hiring qualified women bus drivers was a problem.
The project solved that problem by training women so they could get licenses to operate heavy equipment and to qualify to drive buses.
💡 Lessons Learned
- Addressing Barriers: BRT Private operator worked with driving schools and vocational centers to train women for certain jobs, demonstrating the value of eliminating barriers to women’s representation.
- External Examples: Learning from successful case studies in other countries provided a blueprint for overcoming resistance and inspiring local stakeholders.
- Leadership and Advocacy: Committed leadership is essential, particularly in the face of resistance. Strong leadership ensured that targets were not only a goal, but an actionable priority.
- Partnerships: Partnerships with vocational training schools, local NGOs, women's associations, and recruitment agencies were crucial.
- Recruitment and Communication: Inclusive recruitment campaigns that used social media, flyers, signs, and community outreach were pivotal in attracting women to transport.
- Safety and Inclusivity: Infrastructure designed to improve women’s safety and access make the BRT system more inclusive. Community liaison officers and local safety committees help address safety concerns in a culturally sensitive way.
📌 Conclusion
The Dakar BRT project is an example of the impact of targeted interventions. The project not only met but surpassed its women’s employment targets. This experience underscores the importance of a broad approach that combines infrastructure, training, and strong stakeholder engagement to reach gender equity in urban transit.
Note: This case study was prepared based on an interview with Franck Taillandier (Lead Transport Specialist, World Bank) and Cassandra Augusma (Transport Specialist, World Bank), and with substantive inputs from the staff of Dakar Mobility during a World Bank mission held in November 2024.