Description

As part of the AI 4 Startups initiative, Digital Africa is seeking to engage one or more legal experts or service providers to support the development of startup-centered, context-appropriate regulatory solutions that enable responsible and secure data use and sharing in Africa. To that end, the ToRs are divided into two complementary lots that may be awarded separately or jointly: Lot 1 - Regulatory Insights from Startup Experience Collect and analyse legal and regulatory challenges encountered by African startups through a structured survey and produce a cross-country analysis including relevant good practices and cross-border examples. Lot 2 - Legal Tools for Data Sharing Draft, pilot and adapt a model data-sharing agreement specific to African startup contexts. Legal analysis of the data-sharing aspect of partnership agreements with start-ups as part of the hackathons run by Digital Africa. To effectively foster a data-sharing culture and regulatory innovation for startups, it is essential to approach both diagnosis and solution design as complementary actions within a unified process. Lot 1 enables Digital Africa to capture grounded insights directly from startups regarding legal barriers and regulatory gaps, while Lot 2 translates those insights into concrete legal tools, beginning with a model data-sharing agreement. Both components are intrinsically linked: without understanding startups' legal pain points (Lot 1), any proposed legal framework risks being out of touch with the realities on the ground; conversely, without delivering practical, startup-friendly legal instruments (Lot 2), the regulatory needs identified would remain unmet.