SENEGAL Trends and Developments Contributed by: Khaled Abou El Houda, Chadi Safieddine and Dieudonné Désiré Diouf, Houda Law Firm
establish a culture of responsibility and integ - rity, thereby strengthening the ethical aspects of CSR. Finally, in general, corporate governance and CSR both emphasise long-term value creation rather than short-term gains. Integrating CSR into corporate governance practices ensures that sustainability and social impact considera - tions are taken into account in strategic plan - ning. This approach helps companies manage risk, adapt to market changes, and strengthen their resilience for the future. CSR therefore brings many benefits to compa - nies and society as a whole: • improved risk management – companies can more easily identify and manage risks related to ESG factors; • improved organisational performance – by taking into account the interests of all stake - holders, companies that integrate CSR gener - ally see an improvement in their organisation - al performance, including greater employee engagement; • attracting investors and capital – foreign investors in particular are increasingly tak - ing ESG factors into account when making investment decisions; and • generating a positive social impact – by sup - porting local communities and promoting ethical business practices, organisations can contribute to sustainable development and the well-being of society as a whole. In the Senegalese legal context, the concept of CSR is insufficiently taken into account in cor - porate governance. Indeed, as a reminder, under local law, corporate governance is governed by the Uniform Act on Commercial Companies and Economic Interest Groups ( Acte Uniforme révisé
relatif au droit des Sociétés Commerciales et du Groupement d’Intérêt Économique , or AUS - CGIE). However, this act makes no reference to CSR – only to mandatory rules governing, for example, the composition of the board of direc - tors and shareholders’ voting rights. Apart from the AUSCGIE, an explicit and recent reference to CSR is made in relation to public procurement. Article 4-44 of Decree No 2022- 2295 of 28 December 2022 on the Public Pro - curement Code provides that CSR refers to all actions taken by a company to comply with existing regulations – in particular, its ethical, social and environmental obligations towards its staff and other participating companies, tak - ing into account the impact of its activities on its environment. In addition, in certain key economic sectors such as mining, certain agreements require compa - nies to invest in the development of local com - munities hosting their projects. At the regional level, the Economic Community of West Afri - can States (ECOWAS) – through Article 11 (2) of Directive C/DIR/3/05/09 of 27 May 2009 on the harmonisation of guidelines and policies in the mining sector – stated that ECOWAS mem - ber states must “ensure that CSR in mining and alternative livelihood programmes subject to this article are part of the conditions for granting a mining right or title” . An observation could therefore be made at the local level: for many stakeholders, CSR appears to be more of a constraint. However, as men - tioned earlier, CSR can bring many benefits – among which are the following. • From a social perspective, an appropri - ate policy implemented for the benefit of a company’s employees will help improve their
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