Abidjan:The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) have launched a digital platform designed to monitor the implementation of Africa’s demographic dividend roadmap.
According to News Agency of Nigeria, the platform was inaugurated during a technical workshop held in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. This initiative, developed in collaboration with Côte d’Ivoire’s Ministry of Planning and Development, aims to provide member states with a unified tool to track progress, identify gaps, and support evidence-based decision-making related to the African Union Roadmap on Harnessing the Demographic Dividend through Investments in Youth.
The roadmap, inaugurated by the African Union in 2017, focuses on four main areas: health and well-being, education and skills development, employment and entrepreneurship, and governance and youth empowerment. The digital platform will cover indicators across these dimensions.
The workshop saw participation from representatives of eight pilot countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo. Additional participants included UN agencies in Côte d’Ivoire and senior officials from the country’s Ministry of Planning and Development.
ECA’s Director of its Sub-regional Office for West Africa, Ngone Diop, was among the senior officials present at the opening ceremony. During the three-day workshop, participants tested the platform’s functionalities, enhanced their technical capacities, and provided recommendations for the platform’s final version.
The platform is expected to facilitate broader deployment by offering countries a harmonised framework for monitoring demographic dividend indicators. Dr. Kouakou Kunibouo, an official from Côte d’Ivoire, emphasized that the platform would bolster the country’s demographic monitoring system and technical capacities.
In Niger, Douramane Mariama highlighted challenges in data management and noted that the platform would enhance traceability and simplify reporting. For Benin, Houemenou Dominique mentioned that the tool fulfills a long-standing need for monitoring demographic dividend-related actions.
The pilot phase is seen as a step toward creating a robust regional mechanism for tracking the African Union roadmap’s implementation, ultimately aiming to convert demographic changes into investments and development outcomes for African populations.