Youth, Sport and Volunteering
ECOWAS brings together the ministers responsible for these issues in Dakar
The ECOWAS Centre for Youth and Sports Development (CDJS/ECOWAS), is organising a meeting of ministers responsible for youth and sport from member states on 30 and 31 July 2026 in Dakar, dedicated to the validation and adoption of new regional policies in these three strategic sectors.
This ministerial meeting follows on from the technical discussions held by experts from the member states from 27 to 29 July 2026, during which the draft Regional Youth Policy, Regional Sports Policy and Regional Volunteering Policy, as well as their strategic action plans, were reviewed, refined and consolidated.
The experts made important recommendations aimed at strengthening the relevance, effectiveness and coherence of these policies so that they better address the region’s contemporary challenges, notably youth employability, the promotion of peace and social cohesion, the development of sport as a driver of regional integration, the strengthening of civic engagement through volunteering, and the improvement of governance, coordination and monitoring and evaluation mechanisms.
The ministerial meeting marks the final stage of the policy validation process. It will enable the Ministers to examine the experts’ recommendations, endorse the consolidated texts and adopt the new regional policies that will guide ECOWAS’s interventions in the fields of youth, sport and volunteering for the coming years. These new strategic directions form part of the implementation of ECOWAS’s Vision 2050, which places human capital development, the empowerment of young people, and the promotion of peace, solidarity and regional integration at the heart of the Community’s agenda.
On the sidelines of this ministerial meeting, the ECOWAS Commission will also officially launch the ECOWAS Youth and Women’s Entrepreneurship Programme (EYWEP), developed in partnership with AUDA-NEPAD and the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation and Development (AECID).
Through this high-level meeting, the ECOWAS Commission reaffirms its determination to equip the region with ambitious, inclusive policies tailored to the realities of Member States, with a view to making youth, sport and volunteering drivers of sustainable development, peace, citizenship and regional integration.