“Young people make up 75 per cent of the population SWEDD countries which represent a huge potential of assets for the private sector. Investing in human capital will determine whether or not Africa is able to acquire human capital that is commensurate with its desire for emergence.”

Mabingué Ngom, UNFPA Regional Director for West and Central Africa Office - WCARO

 

SWEDD is a regional project that unites these six western and central African countries with the main objective of “accelerating the demographic transition, to spur the demographic dividend, and to reduce gender inequality in the Sahel region”. SWEDD was officially launched on November 2nd, 2015 in Niger’s capital city of Niamey. Niger also happens to chairs the Regional Steering Committee. When it was initiated SWEDD had an operational time frame that was scheduled to run until the end of 2018. However, owing to an impressive list of achievements on all of SWEDD’s intervention strategies in the region the 2018 time scale has been extended to 2023 and neighbouring states have expressed their interest to join the inspiring and transformational SWEDD initiative.