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National Youth Conference in West Africa, held in Côte d’Ivoire: Engaging ECOWAS to develop a new vision for young people

From 12 to 13 February 2025, the National Youth Conference for the ECOWAS region was held in Yamoussoukro. During the conference, discussions – organised in the form of committees – focused on the youth ecosystem in Côte d’Ivoire, the challenges faced by this section of the population, the underlying causes and proposed solutions. This conference in Côte d’Ivoire was organised following an inclusive process which enabled meetings to be held with young Ivorians from various social backgrounds across the country’s different regions. The opening ceremony was attended by the ECOWAS Resident Representative in Côte d’Ivoire, the Ministry of Youth Promotion, Vocational Integration and Civic Service, represented by the Secretary-General, the Director-General of the INP-HB, local elected representatives and representatives of the decentralised services in Yamoussoukro. The Director-General expressed his satisfaction that the meeting was being held in his municipality. He expressed the hope that the fruitful discussions to take place there would play a key role in shaping ECOWAS’s regional youth policy, in line with its Vision 2050. As a reminder, the National Youth Forum is an ECOWAS initiative, organised by the Centre for Youth and Sports Development. It aims to provide young people with a platform to voice their views on the challenges they face, with a view to identifying joint solutions for the development of a regional youth policy. This meeting, which is taking place in Côte d’Ivoire, follows on from those organised in Benin, Ghana and Senegal. The findings from the four pilot countries will form the basis for discussions at the regional conference to be held in Dakar during the second quarter of 2025. The aim of this regional conference is to formulate a regional youth policy. These meetings are also taking place against the backdrop of the 50th anniversary of ECOWAS. They are fully in line with the Commission’s vision of promoting a stable and secure region in which young people are regarded as key actors in socio-economic development. This approach, in line with ECOWAS’s philosophy and its Vision 2050, also aims to work with young people to devise collaborative and harmonised solutions to address the contemporary challenges they face. #ECOWASYouthConference #ECOWAYouthEngaged #ECOWAYouthLeadership