SWEDD+ marks the culmination of ten years of concerted action, transforming a regional project into a strategic instrument of African leadership for gender equality and investment in young women.

Cotonou, Benin, 1st July 2025  Ten years after its launch, the regional project SWEDD – Sahel Women’s Empowerment and Demographic Dividend – and its successor initiative in Sub-Saharan Africa, SWEDD+, celebrate a decade of shared progress. On this occasion, the city of Cotonou will host the 8th Ordinary Session of the Regional Steering Committee (RSC) on 4 July 2025. This strategic body embodies the regional dimension of the project and plays a key role in political mobilisation and Member States’ commitment to a shared ambition: leaving no girl behind.

The SWEDD regional movement, now SWEDD+, has entered a new phase with the inclusion of The Gambia, Senegal and Togo reinforcing a bold regional dynamic for the empowerment of girls and women.

Organised under the leadership of the West African Health Organisation (WAHO), in partnership with the World Bank and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the session will bring together the overseeing ministers from the SWEDD+ countries: Burkina Faso (current RSC Chair), The Gambia, Mali, Mauritania, Senegal, Chad, and Togo, as well as ministers from countries formerly part of SWEDD, such as Benin (current RSC Vice-Chair) and Côte d’Ivoire, among others. Also in attendance will be national project coordinators, technical and financial partners, and representatives from Regional Economic Communities (the Economic Community of West African States – ECOWAS, the Economic Community of Central African States – ECCAS).

A Decade of Commitment, Millions of Lives Transformed

Since 2015, SWEDD has supported over 2.7 million girls and women through coordinated and impactful actions:

• 1.2 million girls supported to remain in secondary school
• 250,000 young women trained in vocational skills and supported in entrepreneurship
• 654,000 adolescent girls educated in life skills and reproductive health
• 1.3 million girls accessed contraceptive services
• 20,000 midwives trained to provide youth-friendly care
• 3,800 survivors of gender-based violence supported
• Nearly 20,000 community and religious leaders mobilised
• 41 policy reforms adopted across eight countries

Changing Girls’ Lives, Transforming the Future of Nations

The session will review the achievements of 2024, share lessons from the past ten years of implementation, validate action plans for 2025, and renew the governance structures of the RSC. It will be preceded on 2–3 July by a technical meeting of SWEDD+ national coordinators and a dialogue with the regional economic communities (ECOWAS, ECCAS, and the AU).

Investing in adolescent girls is not just a moral obligation: it is a powerful economic driver. Every girl who stays in school, every woman who secures a decent job, contributes to the growth, stability and prosperity of her country. To ignore the potential of girls is to impoverish the future.

The SWEDD+ initiative continues to embody a strong regional ambition for the empowerment of women, the reduction of gender inequalities, and the harnessing of the demographic dividend in Sub-Saharan Africa.

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