West African Youths Back New ECOWAS Election Observer Network at Dakar Conference
- West African youths at the WAYDC in Dakar, Senegal endorsed WAYON as a permanent regional platform for young election observers
- The conference flagged legal and financial barriers blocking young people from politics, with youth making up about 70% of West Africa's population
- Participants called on ECOWAS to adopt an AI framework to guard elections against deepfakes and digital manipulation
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Young people from across West Africa have backed the creation of a permanent regional network for youth election observers, following a conference held in Dakar, Senegal.
The West Africa Youth Democracy Conference (WAYDC) produced a communiqué endorsing the West Africa Youth Observers Network (WAYON), a body designed to serve as a standing platform for capacity building, advocacy and knowledge exchange among young observers in the region.
Source: Original
WAYON and its structure
According to the communiqué, WAYON will be anchored to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and hosted by the Legis360 Centre for Advocacy, Development and Public Enlightenment Initiative. Samuel Folorunsho, founder and executive director of Legis360, signed the document.
The network will be guided by a steering committee and focal points in each ECOWAS member state, supported by a digital platform for communication and coordination.
Its core work will cover election observation training, data collection and information sharing across member states, with the ECOWAS Commission leading coordination alongside relevant partners.
The endorsement drew on a pilot project that embedded 22 young observers from 11 ECOWAS member states into the 2025 presidential election observation mission in Côte d'Ivoire. The communiqué said the exercise showed that young people could contribute meaningfully to electoral integrity when given the right preparation and support.
Calls for legal and digital reform
Participants raised concern over the absence of binding frameworks that guarantee youth political participation, pointing to high nomination fees, weak enforcement of inclusion policies and limited monitoring mechanisms as persistent obstacles.
The conference noted that young people make up roughly 70 per cent of West Africa's population, a share expected to grow further by 2035.
ECOWAS Election Observation Missions in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, The Gambia, Liberia, Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire were cited as having documented the structural exclusion of young people from governance and electoral processes on multiple occasions.
To address this, the conference urged West African governments to pass specific legislation including youth quotas, reduced candidacy fees and campaign spending limits. Political parties were also asked to open their leadership structures and candidate selection processes to young people and women.
On digital democracy, participants called on ECOWAS to finalise an operational framework governing the use of artificial intelligence by election management bodies, with safeguards against disinformation and deepfakes.
Member states were also urged to invest in digital civic education and to oppose internet shutdowns during electoral periods.
The communiqué recommended that ECOWAS and its development partners incorporate youth inclusion indicators and the Dakar recommendations into their 2026-2027 work plans, with a biennial review mechanism proposed to track implementation progress.
This Conference is supported by the EU Support to ECOWAS on Peace, Security and Governance (EPSG) project, commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), co-funded by the European Union (EU) and the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and co-implemented by GIZ, Expertise France and FIAP.
Xenophobia: Shettima tasks ECOWAS
Earlier, Legit.ng reported that Vice-President Kashim Shettima challenged South Africa to remember who funded its freedom, telling ECOWAS leaders that Nigerian students had money taken from their scholarship allowances to bankroll anti-apartheid liberation movements across Southern Africa.
Shettima made the remarks on Monday, July 20, while addressing the 69th Ordinary Session of the ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and Government in Sierra Leone, where he pushed for a united West African response to xenophobic violence targeting African migrants in South Africa.
Source: Legit.ng
