Senegal approves its roadmap to make data an engine of growth

Government agencies produce considerable amounts of data every day: civil registration, taxation, health, education, agriculture, transport. Most of it sits idle on servers, in spreadsheets or in paper archives, never cross-referenced or used to improve services. That is the waste Senegal wants to reduce with its national master plan for making use of data, approved at a workshop on 21 and 22 September 2026.

The workshop was organised by the Directorate of Information and Communication Technologies (DTIC) of the Ministry of Communication, Telecommunications and the Digital Economy, with support from Smart Africa, the pan-African digital alliance, under its data governance in Africa programme, and from German development cooperation (GIZ).

A pilot country

Senegal is one of the initiative’s three pilot countries, along with Kenya and Lesotho. The project started in June 2026. National consultations were held on 1 and 2 July to identify possible uses of data and artificial intelligence in several sectors. The September workshop served to refine the implementation and monitoring mechanisms before the document is finalised.

Ministries, public institutions, universities, businesses, technology companies, civil society and technical and financial partners took part in the discussions. This broad consultation is a condition for success: a data plan designed by the digital ministry alone would risk remaining a dead letter in the ministries that actually produce the data.

What “making use” of data means

The term may seem abstract. It covers very concrete uses. Cross-referencing health and weather data to anticipate malaria outbreaks. Using transport data to better organise Dakar’s bus routes. Publishing reliable agricultural statistics to help producers and banks make decisions. Allowing citizens to provide their documents to the administration only once, which then shares them between departments.

The plan aims to make data a lever for creating economic, social, environmental and institutional value: new services, more competitive sectors, better public services and sustainable growth. It fits with Vision Sénégal 2050, the Technology New Deal, the national data strategy and the national artificial intelligence strategy.

Examples of what is possible

In agriculture, which supports a large share of Senegalese people, combined data on soils, rainfall, market prices and yields would make it possible to advise producers on seeds and sowing dates, and help banks better assess the risk of an agricultural loan. In health, cross-referencing data from health facilities with the weather and population movements would help anticipate seasonal epidemics and distribute medicine stocks.

In government, the “tell us once” principle would change users’ lives: a citizen who has already provided their birth certificate or proof of residence should no longer have to provide it again for every procedure, if departments exchange this information securely. For businesses, open data on demographics, consumption or mobility would reduce the cost of market research and make it easier to create new services, notably by start-ups.

Smart Africa and continental governance

Smart Africa, the alliance bringing together some forty African countries around digital technology, has been working for several years on data governance at continental level. The long-term goal is to make it easier for African countries to exchange data, within a common framework of trust, to support the continental free trade area. Pilot countries such as Senegal serve as laboratories: what works for them can be adapted elsewhere, and the difficulties they encounter will feed the continental recommendations.

No AI without data

The link with artificial intelligence is direct. An AI model is only as good as the data it is trained on or uses. A country that wants AI tools suited to its realities, its languages, its agriculture and its health system must have reliable, documented and accessible data. Without this groundwork, it is condemned to using tools designed elsewhere, based on data that does not resemble it.

It is also a question of sovereignty. Well-organised national data makes it possible to negotiate with big tech companies from a position of strength, set access conditions, and ensure that the benefits of using it go to the country. Conversely, data that is scattered, poorly protected or handed without rules to foreign providers escapes national control.

The conditions for success

• Personal data protection: any use of data must comply with Senegalese law and the oversight of the Personal Data Protection Commission.
• Quality: wrong or incomplete data produces bad decisions, and biased AI tools.
• Interoperability: the systems of different ministries must be able to exchange information according to common standards.
• Skills: government agencies need statisticians, data engineers and lawyers.
• Security: the cyberattack on the ID card database earlier this year is a reminder that every centralised database is a target.

Funding is the other open question. The document approved in September sets out directions, but implementation will require budgets: recruiting specialists, modernising ministries’ information systems, data exchange platforms, security. The Technology New Deal, the government’s major digital strategy, provides for significant investment, and partners such as GIZ and Smart Africa provide technical support. Making use of data will still need to win its share of budget decisions, against more visible needs such as infrastructure.

Governance matters just as much. Who decides which data is shared, between which departments, and under what rules? A national committee, with representatives of the ministries that produce data, the data protection authority and civil society, can prevent each agency from jealously guarding its files, or, conversely, sensitive data from circulating without control.

From roadmap to results

Digital roadmaps are plentiful in Africa, and many remain on paper. Senegal’s will be judged on visible achievements: an enriched, up-to-date open data portal, public services that actually use data to simplify procedures, and AI projects carried out with local universities and start-ups. The participation of Kenya and Lesotho in the same programme will offer a useful point of comparison. The next step is the final version of the document, then the first projects. That is when we will know whether Senegal’s data is really waking up, and whether it serves citizens first.