Senegal’s international competitiveness and employment creation for women and youth : the product space analysis and fieldwork findings

Abstract

By improving product quality and cost-competitiveness, Senegal can foster increasing economic complexity and employment growth within existing product lines with strong comparative advantage. Product complexity refers to technological sophistication, and can be used to identify possible diversification opportunities that will spur growth. The central concept is to diversify exports into increasingly “complex” products embodying sophisticated capabilities. This policy brief assesses the prospects for boosting employment through export-led growth, making use of the product-space/product complexity framework.