Regional conference on "Partnership for Culture, Communication and Demographic Dividend"

Dakar, Senegal – 22 November, 2018: A regional conference on the theme: "Partnership for Culture, Communication and the Demographic Dividend" is being co-organized by the Ministry of Culture of Senegal and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to highlight the crucial role of traditional communicators in the implementation of the African Union Roadmap to harness the Demographic Dividend (DD). The objective of the Dakar conference to be held from 25 to 26 November 2018 at King Fahd Palace, and 27 at the Grand Theater, in Senegal, is to set up a regional network of traditional communicators, religious and traditional leaders, in the framework of a partnership with the Ministries in charge of Culture of West and Central African countries. The network would impulse and coordinate the implementation of its own action plan as well as those of the countries in the region to accelerate harnessing the DD.

The conference will highlight the catalytic role of culture and communication in social and economic transformations. It will also serve as a framework for the definition of a strategic partnership between the ministers of culture and of communication of the countries of the region.

The Dakar conference, held six months after the Conakry regional symposium, will bring together about 300 participants, including traditional communicators, religious and traditional leaders, representatives of women's organizations, as well as young people, parliamentarians and journalists of the following 14 countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Congo, Ivory Coast, Gabon, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Central African Republic, Senegal, and Togo. The conference will be graced by the presence of the Ministers of Culture of these 14 countries.

The Conakry meeting which brought together traditional communicators, religious and traditional leaders from Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Ivory Coast, Guinea, Mali, Niger, and Senegal, adopted a Declaration and a Roadmap with one of the key steps being to organize a regional conference to establish a regional network of traditional communicators and religious and traditional leaders, in order to effectively support the implementation of the country action plans, in line with the following three transforming results:

Zero preventable maternal deaths,
Zero unmet need in family planning,
Zero Gender-Based Violence (GBV) including Female Genital Mutilation

During the Dakar conference El Hadj Mansour Mbaye, President of the National Network of Traditional Communicators of Senegal will be awarded a special distinction. He is one of the first traditional communicators to have committed himself alongside UNFPA, to promote the good health of mother and child, and Family Planning as an accessible and effective strategy for reducing maternal and child deaths in Senegal.

Under the distinguished leadership of Senegalese President Macky Sall, the award ceremony of El Hadj Mansour Mbaye will take place in Grand Theater, in Dakar, on November 27, during the official closing ceremony of the regional conference.