Senegal officially launched its National Cooperative Gender Platform at the African Forum on the Social and Solidarity Economy (FORA’ESS Dakar 2026).
The move makes Senegal the second African country to establish the framework, with Kenya, introducing the initiative in March 2026.
Developed by ICA-Africa, the NCGP is a framework designed to promote gender equality within Africa’s co-operative sector. It serves as a national coordination mechanism, bringing together women’s co-operative groups, apex organisations, governments and other stakeholders to increase women’s representation in leadership, co-ordinate gender equality initiatives and influence national policy.
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The launch was attended by a number of high-profile figures, including Spain’s second deputy prime minister and minister of labour and social economy Yolanda Díaz, Cameroon’s minister of small and medium-sized enterprises, social economy and handicrafts Achille Bassilekin III, and Samira Daoud, director of the International Labour Organization’s Decent Work Technical Support Team for West Africa and Country Office for Senegal, Cabo Verde, the Gambia and Guinea.
According to ICA-Africa, the NCGP is “already poised to scale beyond Senegal’s borders”.
The apex added that other countries are being guided to establish their own NCGPs. Women co-operative leaders from across Africa participated in the launch, with representatives from Togo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Gabon, Cabo Verde, Mali and Chad receiving the NCGP framework to support the creation of similar platforms in their own countries.
At the launch, ICA-Africa also signed a memorandum of understanding with the Fonds de Développement et de Solidarité Municipal. In a press release, the co-op apex said that this partnership “will strengthen collaboration in advancing gender-responsive cooperative development and support the implementation of the National Cooperative Gender Platform in Senegal”.
