AI regulation in Senegal (2026)

The Stratégie Nationale pour le Développement de l'Intelligence Artificielle was launched in September 2023, structured around four objectives and six strategic orientations including ethical AI, research, human capital development, and West African regional leadership through 2028. It targets training approximately 90,000 Senegalese in data science and AI by 2028.

AI has no legal definition in Senegalese law and no AI-specific regulatory framework is in force. The SNDIA is a policy document, not a statute, and creates no legally enforceable obligations on developers or deployers.

The Commission de Protection des Données Personnelles (CDP), established by Law n° 2008-12 of 25 January 2008, is the principal authority that indirectly governs data used in AI systems. The CDP itself has stated the law is outdated relative to generative AI challenges.

Senegal completed UNESCO's AI Readiness Assessment Methodology (RAM), producing a sociotechnical baseline assessment that informed the SNDIA's development and identified infrastructure and gender-access gaps as governance priorities.

The SNDIA envisions regulatory sandboxes, AI impact assessments for high-risk systems, a national AI ethics committee, and a national AI research cluster (Cluster Sénégal IA) — all remain aspirational targets rather than operative measures as of mid-2026.

A draft law to replace the 2008 data protection statute — reportedly including provisions for algorithmic processing impact assessments and automated decision-making rights — has been prepared and is awaiting passage by the National Assembly, which would constitute Senegal's first AI-adjacent binding regulation.