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On Monday, the project was unveiled in Abuja and would benefit five countries: Burkina Faso, Chad, The Gambia, Senegal, and Togo.
When speaking at the ceremony, ECOWAS vice-president Damtien Tchintchibidja referred to the program as a groundbreaking step in addressing gender inequality and harnessing the potential of women and girls for regional development.
“This project is a huge step forward in our combined efforts to realise the full potential of women and girls in our region. Women and girls are the foundation of our societies, and empowering them is critical to achieving long-term development, economic growth, and social advancement,” Tchintchibidja remarked.
The World Bank-funded SWEDD+ project seeks to expand on the more than two million women and girls who have benefited from the Sahel Women’s Empowerment and Demographic Dividend (SWEDD) initiative over the past 10,000 years.
During the launch, Mohammed Pate, Nigeria’s coordinating minister of health and social welfare, emphasized the role of the health sector in achieving the project’s goals.
Pate emphasised continued initiatives to fortify the nation’s healthcare system while being represented by Kamil Shoretire, director of health planning, research, and statistics.
“The ministry is boosting access to reproductive health services, increasing staff capacity, and improving population health outcomes.
“With a strong emphasis on reproductive health interventions and family planning programs, more than 120,000 frontline health workers are undergoing training,” Pate stated.
In order to enhance the educational, health, and economic prospects of young women and girls in Nigeria, Pate praised the SWEDD+ project as a timely intervention.
“The people of Africa have enormous potential. By investing in our youth and making sure that young women and girls have the resources they need to succeed, we are addressing our demographic dividend through programs like SWEDD+,” he said.
A growing understanding of the significance of gender equality in attaining sustainable prosperity in Africa is shown in the SWEDD+ project. The project seeks to enable women and girls to assume leadership roles in their communities and make significant contributions to regional development by expanding their access to healthcare, education, and economic opportunities.
As the initiative gets underway, ECOWAS and its partners are hopeful that it will have a profound effect on millions of women and girls, establishing them as important forces behind Africa’s social and economic advancement.
