Seizing collective action and cooperation across the Sahel to harness the demographic dividend: partnership between the Sahel Countries, World Bank and UNFPA

Laurent Napoleon Assogba, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)
Gilena G. Andrade, UNICEF-WCARO
Rossella Albertini, UNICEF-WCARO

Marked by high poverty incidence, food insecurity, and multiple factors of fragility and instability, an underlying factor for Sahelian countries is the inability to translate high GDP growth into the greater prosperity and wellbeing of its population. The slow demographic transition is thus preventing countries from harnessing the benefits of a demographic dividend. It is with this in mind that Six countries (Burkina Faso, Chad, Côte d‘Ivoire, Niger, Mali and Mauritania) sharing similar vulnerabilities and challenges have individually and jointly come together to seize collective action to harness the demographic dividend across their region through a 4-year (2015-2018) project developed with World Bank, in collaboration with regional institutions including ECOWAS, and the WAHO, supported by the Regional Office for West and Central Africa, regional offices of the WHO, the Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition, as well as partners such as France, USAID, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, under the Ouagadougou Partnership.