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At ICFP 2025, the WCA Commitment makes its voice heard: Young people at the heart of accountability for education, health and well-being
Bogotá, 6 November 2025 — In a global landscape often saturated with promises, the political voice of West and Central Africa resonated clearly at ICFP 2025: it is young, determined, and collective.
For the first time, representatives of the Community of committed young people of WCA — the regional youth platform created to support and champion the West and Central Africa Commitment for educated, healthy and thriving adolescents and young people (the WCA Commitment) — took part in this global conference on family planning, not as symbolic figures in an international programme, but as full actors of a regional political process they have helped to shape.
As part of an interactive session on “Improving access to quality health education” during a UCPO side event, UNESCO co-facilitated a Knowledge Café built around three roundtables designed as discussion groups. The table on “Mobilising commitments for young people’s education, health and well-being”, facilitated by Equipop, brought together young activists, officials from ministries of education and health, civil society actors and technical partners around a central question: how can political commitments become genuinely accountable and inclusive?
Intervention by Djamila, national coordinator of the Community of committed young people in Burkina Faso, during a side event at ICFP, in Bogotá, Colombia (November 2025)
Far from top-down panels, the chosen format — engagement-meter, role-reversal exercises, unfiltered testimonies — enabled young people from Mali, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea and Senegal to position themselves concretely within the process: what has been their role before, on 6 April 2023, and still today, to ensure that adolescents’ rights do not remain mere words on paper? This space for dialogue reflects a new reality: young people are no longer beneficiaries, but agents of change, driving and implementing local and innovative solutions.
“We are not simply responding to global challenges; we are shaping solutions.” — Sira Sojourner Touré, young speaker, Community of committed young people of WCA
A confident regional voice, carried by its youth
The WCA Commitment, proclaimed in 2023 and now supported by a regional accountability framework co-developed with 25 countries, is not just a technical document. It is a strong political statement: that adolescents and young people in sub-Saharan Africa must be educated, healthy and empowered to thrive.
Their presence in Bogotá, among more than 8,000 delegates from 120 countries — including 50 ministers of health, parliamentarians, researchers, activists and UN agencies — is far from anecdotal. In a space where global narratives are still too often shaped elsewhere, they carried a bold and credible regional agenda. The WCA region does not merely follow: it innovates, proposes, and reports back.
William Ngue (UNESCO) et Lamine Tine (RAES) - lors du side event sur l'application Hello Ado
Beyond the session, UNESCO and its partners also presented the Hello Ado platform, developed with and for young people, as a digital awareness-raising tool designed to provide reliable, contextualised information on health and well-being.
This initiative, together with the presence of the Community of committed young people of WCA, reflects a profound transformation: African youth are no longer a target of public action, but a driving force for design, implementation and monitoring — on equal footing with their peers in other regions of the world.
Discussions at the UNESCO table generated concrete recommendations, powerful contributions and meaningful connections between young people and decision-makers. The indirect effects of scaling up health education programmes are positive for young people: delaying sexual debut, reducing the number and frequency of partners, and supporting safer practices (condoms, contraception, etc.). Stakeholders also strengthened the political legitimacy of a unique regional commitment in which youth are not an “add-on”, but the very heart of the mechanism.
By giving substance to the WCA Commitment on international platforms, UNESCO and its partners are helping to build a continent where young people’s voices are not only politely heard, but met with concrete political responses.
Through its thematic sessions and youth support, UCPO enhanced the visibility of African initiatives and strengthened francophone coordination at global level. With less than five years remaining until 2030, ICFP 2025 calls for transforming data into concrete action to ensure that every young person can fully exercise their reproductive rights.
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