By the World Bank, UNFPA and ECOWAS members of the GBV Regional Technical Working Group

ECOWAS: Dr Odile Faye, Program Officer Gender and Civil Society  /  UNFPA: Wilfried Rouamba, Youth & Gender Specialist; Pedro Guerra, Gender-Based Violence (GBV) and Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) Specialist/ The world Bank: Leila Hanafi, Senior Legal Specialist; Abdoulaye Kaye, Senior Health Specialist

Every year, World Population Day reminds us that people are the world's greatest asset. In Sub-Saharan Africa, where nearly 60 percent of the population is under the age of 25, the path to capturing  the demographic dividend depends on one central investment: empowering adolescent girls and women to live healthy, safe, educated, and productive lives.

The evidence is clear.  When girls remain in school, are protected from gender-based violence (GBV) and harmful practices, can access quality health services, economic opportunities, and enjoy equal legal rights, countries achievestronger human capital outcomes, higher labour-force participation, healthier families, and more resilient economies.

But these outcomes do not happen through policy commitments alone. They require legal frameworks that protect rights, institutions capable of implementing them, adequate financing, accountability mechanism and regional cooperation that can accelerate eform and delivery.

Measuring progress, together

To better understand where legal barriers continue to constrain progress,  SWEDD and   SWEDD+ regional partners, including  the World Bank, UNFPA and ECOWAS and ECCAS  recently published Toward a Legal and Policy Enabling Environment for Women and Girls in Sub-Saharan Africa. Developed in collaboration with the Women, Business and the Law (WBL) program, the report presents comparative legal and policy evidence across 26 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The report provides governments and regional institutions with an evidence base to strengthen reforms that directly affect women and girls, particularly in areas that are central to human capital development.

The WBL–SWEDD+ analytical framework assesses both the legal environment, meaning the existence of rights and protections in laws and regulations,  and the supportive environment, meaning the policies, strategies, implementation guidelines, protocols and institutional mechanisms required to translate those rights into practice.

By examining these two dimensions together, the framework provides governments with a clearer  picture of where legal reform has progressed and where implementation gaps continue to limit outcomes for women and girls.

Its findings reinforce an important lesson.  Across the region, many countries have strengthened legal protections, but implementation gaps continue to prevent millions of women and girls from fully realizing their rights. Laws are essential building blocks of human capital, but they  are not sufficient on their own. Effective implementation also requires strong institutions, financing, accountability, and sustained regional cooperation.

This legal evidence complemented other regional knowledge products and accountability tools, including UNFPA’s SWEDD+ Annual Report, which tracks results in reproductive health, education, and economic empowerment for adolescent girls and women,  and ECOWAS’s 2021 Regional Strategy to Prevent and Respond to Gender-Based Violence, alongside its ECOGEB gender barometeron gender  inequality across member states. Together, these sources  provide  a fuller picture of where the region stands and where accelerated action is needed.

From Evidence to Regional Action

The SWEDD and SWEDD+ programs have shown that regional collaboration can accelerate reform. Working with governments, ECOWAS, ECCAS, UNFPA, the World Bank, civil society, and development partners, countries have strengthened legal frameworks while investing in girls' education, women's sexual and reproductive health, economic empowerment, and adolescent development.

Building on this momentum, Ministers, Heads of Delegation, and First Ladies from SWEDD+ countries adopted the Regional Gender-Based Violence Action Plan during the April 2026 Regional Forum on Zero Tolerance for GBV in Banjul, The Gambia.  Convened by ECOWAS in partnership with The Gambia and UNFPA,the forum marked an important step toward stronger regional coordination.

The Action Plan provides  a shared regional roadmap to strengthen prevention, legal reform, survivor-centered services, institutional accountability, and cross-border cooperation.    

Implementation is already underway. To translate regional commitments into sustained action, SWEDD+ partners have launched the Regional Technical Working Group on Gender-Based Violence. The group brings  together technical representatives from ECOWAS, ECCAS, UNFPA, the World Bank, and participating countries, including The Gambia and Mauritania, to coordinate implementation of the Action Plan and strengthen regional collaboration on legal reform.

The Working Group builds on important progress achieved in September 2025, when ECOWAS’s Department of Human Development and Social Affairs, through the ECOWAS Gender Development Centre, convened legal, health, and social protection experts from eight countries in Saly Portudal, Senegal. Participants from  Benin, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Guinea, Mauritania, Senegal, and Chad reviewed national legal gaps related to child marriage, female genital mutilation, femicide, and digital violence with technical support from WAHO and UNFPA and financing from the World Bank.

That workshop identified produced a joint roadmap that the Regional Working Group is now helping to implement across the region The Working Group has already begun advancing several flagship regional initiatives, including:

• the development of a Regional GBV Legal Scorecard, a comparative tool designed to help countries measure progress on legal reform, implementation, survivor protection, and institutional accountability;

• the publication of an annual State of Gender-Based Violence in SWEDD+ Countries report, tracking prevalence,      access to services for survivors, and reform progress across the region

• the preparation of an ECOWAS Model Law on Gender-Based Violence to support greater legal harmonization across West Africa;

• comparative legal and policy reviews to support country-level reforms; and

• strengthened regional knowledge exchange through  SWEDD+ legal platforms and technical partners.

Together, these initiatives mark  an important shift from documenting legal gaps to supporting countries in closing them.

Turning Rights into Development Results

Legal reform is not an end in itself. It is a pathway toward better development outcomes.  When countries remove legal barriers that prevent pregnant girls from returning to school, expand access to comprehensive sexuality education, criminalize harmful practices, strengthen protections against gender-based violence and improve access to quality reproductive health services, they create conditions for girls to complete their education, participate in the economy, delay early marriage, and realize their full potential.

These reforms benefit not only women and girls, they strengthen human capital, improve productivity, promote healthier families, and contribute directly to inclusive economic growth. They are also central to the realization of Africa's demographic dividend.

Looking Ahead

This World Population Day is an opportunity to reaffirm a simple but powerful message:  investing in adolescent girls and women is one of the smartest development choices  countries can make.

The Regional Gender-Based Violence Action Plan, its early implementation through the Regional Technical Working Group, the Regional GBV Legal Scorecard and the forthcoming ECOWAS Model Law all  demonstrate that the region is moving from evidence to coordinated action.

This progress is grounded in evidence generated through the SWEDD+ regional legal reform initiative, in partnership with the Women, Business and the Law program, and complemented by  UNFPA’s and ECOWAS’s own regional research, monitoring  and reporting. Together, these tools help  governments identify where legal barriers remain, where implementation must be strengthened and where regional cooperation can accelerate change.      .      

Sustaining this momentum will require continued leadership from governments, regional organizations, development partners, civil society, and communities. By strengthening laws, institutions, and implementation together, West and Central Africa can unlock the full potential of its young population and  ensure  that every girl has the opportunity to learn, thrive, lead, and contribute to the continent's future prosperity.