This Year It’s Time to Start-Up for Women and Youths in Senegal

Senegal is officially the second African country to pass a “start-up” act – encouraging all, especially women and youth, to run their own local businesses thanks to generous tax breaks and other new benefits.

To date, start-ups in Senegal have mostly been run by men, due to complicated laws and high taxes, but the government is hoping to encourage more diversity with the new law. The law gives qualified new businesses three tax-free years as well as training, and officials say they are hoping this will also get more women, youth, and social enterprises on board.

“This law will unleash the talent of our young entrepreneurs to have a real social impact,” says Thierno Sakho, project manager at Senegal’s 50-million-dollar state fund for start-ups. “We want solutions that address… poverty, malnutrition and financial inclusion.”

The law was drafted in 2018 with the help of 60 Senegalese entrepreneurs in a collaborative workshop called a “hackathon”, according to Eva Sow Ebioon of i4Policy, an African initiative for start-up policy reforms which led the process. The law will come into effect later this year.