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Regarded as the only standard for national digital policy, the Senegal Digital Strategy 2025 faces many difficulties in its implementation phase. Developed since 2016 with the ambitious goal of increasing the contribution of digital technology in the PIB by up to 10%, this strategy is struggling to materialize due to the lack of steering instruments that can be used to implement it.
For this reason, Antoine Ngom, president of OPTIC as a key player in the digital sector in Senegal, warns that the authorities are warning of this latency situation, which is beginning to
Indeed, according to him "It seems to me urgent today to set up this steering committee which is the interdepartmental steering committee and monitoring to avoid progress with dispersed actions and power. appreciate the progress of the strategy. Otherwise, I can not ensure the achievement of the objectives set out in this Digital Senegal 2025 strategy. "
With regard to the regulatory and legislative framework, Optic remains very attentive to the new electronic communications code that will soon be on the table. parliamentarians to see if all the concerns of private sector actors have been taken into account in the law. "We hope that the decrees of applications will be presented to the National Assembly at the same time as the new law so that it can be applicable and implemented immediately" suggested Antoine.
Taking advantage of this the forum offered by this meeting with the press, the president of Optic has returned more fully to the digital sector generally in Senegal. He mentioned among other topics the situation of Start-up with the announced support of the government through the DER, the digital companies, through the Internet Access Providers (ISPs).
For support to digital innovation and public-private partnership for Start-ups, a fund of 1 billion FCFA was announced by the President of the Republic at the forum on digital on March 15 through the Delegation for Entrepreneurship Fast (DER). What is considered insufficient by the actors compared to all that generates the sector to allow to have much more impact. "The digital sector generates very important resources, we reasonably believe that it is possible for the state to mobilize many more resources to support the development of the digital economy," said Ngom.
However the sector Senegal is not just about start-ups. As a result, the state must also support companies in the sector to make digital activity more dynamic and more efficient. For Antoine, if there is today a sector in which Senegal has nothing to envy to the developed countries it is indeed the digital sector. It is therefore important for the actors that the State makes the ecosystem favorable to the emergence of national private companies. He felt that certain activities of ADIE should be entrusted to the national private sector which has the necessary resources to provide these services; it's the "get it done" strategy to facilitate market access. However, he believes that the problem lies rather with a lack of political will on the part of the government.
On the issue of Internet Access Providers "we had a great victory" suggested the President of Optic . Indeed the ISPs had formulated with the government a request to pass from the license to a simple request for authorization from the government to be able to operate on the national territory. According to Antoine the government has accepted this request and intends to reimburse the cost of the license for ISPs already established in Senegal problem of high cost of frequencies has always been a concern for the actors.
Yanda SOW, Trainee
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