With the right governance, Senegal, with its longstanding political stability as a 51-year-old democracy and its strategic position bordering Mauritania, Mali, Guinea and Guinea-Bissau on Africa’s westernmost point, is ideally positioned to serve as the hub for natural-resource development in these countries – and in Burkina Faso, Gambia, and Niger as well. The economic benefits of such a strategy for Senegal are potentially vast: new industries in mineral processing, transport, and shipping, bringing higher-value-added employment; budget revenues from transit fees for minerals exports and pipelines; and improved infrastructure connecting the country’s rural heartland to Dakar and the coast.