This archive report was first published on 14 November 2019.
West Africa: The Demographic Dividend in the Sahel at the Nairobi Summit ¶
On 13 November 2019, a session on "Demographic Dividend in the Sahel" was held at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD25) in Nairobi, Kenya. The event, organized by the implementing partners of the Sahel Women's Empowerment and Demographic Dividend Project (SWEDD), was an opportunity to exchange on the best practices and innovative approaches for the empowerment of women and girls.
Over 300 delegates attended the session, which was carried out in two stages. The first panel featured ministers from the SWEDD countries, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and their representatives for Benin and Ivory Coast, who outlined the encouraging results and successful interventions of the project in their respective countries. The second panel focused on strategies and tools for monitoring the demographic dividend to promote human capital.
Priority actions focus on increasing girls' access to education, training for young women, family planning programs, and taking cultural norms into account. The elimination of child marriage and other harmful practices is also a priority, while including men's contributions to gender equality.
Religious leaders and traditional communicators in SWEDD countries conduct community dialogue using theological and cultural arguments in favor of girls' secondary education, birth spacing, and family planning. Boys and men engage through community-based interventions designed to strengthen women's empowerment support.
The results of the project are convincing: more than 4 million women use modern contraceptive methods, and the high school completion rate for girls increased from 35.1% to 40.3% between 2015 and 2018. The SWEDD project's theory of change is a key pillar to support the demographic transition in the region by 2023.
To expand this project to a continental scale, applications for membership from five other countries are under consideration. Those are Senegal, Togo, Gambia, Guinea, and Cameroon. They will be present at this session, which promises to be rich in sharing experiences.
About the SWEDD project
SWEDD is a multisectoral and multidimensional partnership between seven Sahelian countries. Launched in November 2015, the SWEDD project is funded by the World Bank, coordinated by UNFPA, with technical assistance from the West African Health Organization. This initiative responds to the call made by the presidents of the Sahel countries, aiming to accelerate the demographic transition, trigger the demographic dividend, and reduce gender inequalities in the region.
About the Nairobi Summit
The Nairobi Summit on ICPD25 aims to mobilize political will and financial commitments to finally and fully implement the Programme of Action adopted by 179 governments in 1994 at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), and unanimously confirmed in a political declaration in 2019.
