Senegal

The Ministry of Communication, Telecommunications and the Digital Economy (MCTEN) is responsible for coordinating and overseeing AI-related initiatives. MCTEN launched Senegal’s National Strategy for the Development of Artificial Intelligence (SNDIA) in September 2023, developed in part via collaboration with experts involved in the RAM process. An ethical approach to AI forms an important part of the SNDIA, although the detail has yet to be elaborated. This strategy builds on the Digital Strategy 2025, the National Data Strategy, and the National Cybersecurity Strategy among other recent policies, under the Emerging Senegal Plan. There is not yet a legal or regulatory framework specific to AI.

Senegal is in the midst of a transformation of its digital infrastructure, with a wave of development of data centres, internet connectivity and fibre optic networks, 5G network, and a supercomputing capability. Senegal has one of the most dynamic digital entrepreneurship ecosystems in French-speaking West Africa, with private sector initiatives such as digital start-up incubators and FabLabs.

According to ITU, in 2021, 58% of the population were using the internet, there were 21m mobile-cellular subscriptions in relation to an overall population of 17m in 2022, and almost all mobile users (99%) had access to a 3G or 4G network as of March 2023.

However, significant obstacles remain. The share of gross R&D investment is relatively low, at 0.58% in 2015. There are substantial gender divides and rural-urban gaps in technological infrastructure, including electrification rate and internet usage. In 2018, only half of rural households had access to electricity (52.5%), compared with nearly 9 out of 10 urban households. Measures of the gender gap in mobile phone access, expressed as a ratio of female-to-male mobile phone use range between 0.79 and 0.85. The gender gap in internet usage is higher, at a ratio of 0.7. This gender inequality extends to education. In higher education, female students make up less than 30% and female researchers 25% of the total in STEM subjects. Steps are being taken to address these digital gender and rural-urban gaps via the Senegal Digital 2025 strategy.

In terms of policy, there is not yet a national data sharing framework or policy on open public data in the AI sector. However, the open data ecosystem has been growing over the past decade, and Senegal has an Open Data Inventory Score of 47, placing it 100th of 195 countries. There remain challenges around data collection and sharing in many sectors, often due to a lack of digitalization, and there is a lack of official data on economic aspects of the digital transformation, including areas such as investment in or uptake of AI.

Recent cyber-attacks targeting government sites have dented confidence in the Senegalese web and demonstrate the crucial importance of strengthening cybersecurity measures, which recent national strategies on data and cybersecurity aim to address. Senegal scored 0.49 in 2022 in the Online Services Index, above the sub-regional average of 0.38, which measures a government's contribution, capacity and willingness to provide services and communicate with its citizens electronically. In the same year, Senegal’s E-Participation Index score was 0.34, or 110th out of 193 countries.