A Regional Forum Elevating Girls’ Voices
On 10 and 11 October, Dakar turns into the epicentre of a continental conversation as the Girls Summit 2025 convenes more than 250 young change-makers from 24 African states under the auspices of UNICEF Africa. The meeting, expressly designed by and for adolescents, crowns a year-long cycle of country consultations on schooling, health, nutrition, protection and civic participation. Dakar’s agenda therefore mirrors the priorities repeatedly voiced in Brazzaville, Abidjan or Nairobi: ending the gender gap in classrooms, shielding girls from early marriage, and recognising their centrality in climate resilience.
The organisers are keen to distinguish the Summit from the alphabet soup of conventional conferences. Delegates, not dignitaries, hold the microphone first; ministers are invited to listen, then to commit. In the words of a UNICEF programme officer reached ahead of the opening session, the exercise aims to “shift the centre of gravity toward the very generation most affected by today’s policy choices”. That generational shift is nowhere more visible than in the Congolese cohort.
The Congolese Delegation: Portrait of Determination
Travelling from Brazzaville on 9 October, Lucia, Frédéric, Rebecca, Euverte, Shekinha and Charly embody a mosaic of experiences that complicates stereotypes about Central African youth. Lucia, 16, already chairs the Children’s Parliament of the Republic of the Congo and argues with calm authority that “girls must be acknowledged not only as beneficiaries but as leaders”. Rebecca, 18, whose albinism exposed her to discrimination, stands for the right of girls with disabilities to equal opportunity and security. Frédéric, another 18-year-old, dreams of becoming Minister of Youth so that, as he puts it, “decision-making is never again an adults-only business”.
The group’s youngest voice, 13-year-old Euverte, takes climate justice personally and deliberately frames his advocacy as gender-inclusive, insisting that “boys and girls advance together or not at all”. Shekinha and Charly complete the team, contributing expertise in community health outreach and digital storytelling. Their very presence in Dakar signals that Congolese civil society is investing early in a leadership pipeline able to navigate both domestic priorities and international agendas.
From Consultation to Action: Expected Outcomes
Pre-Summit national dialogues have already generated a portfolio of proposals that the six delegates will defend in plenary and in thematic ateliers: compulsory secondary education for all girls, budget lines earmarked for adolescent nutrition, and local youth councils monitoring municipal compliance with child-protection statutes. The aim is twofold. First, to insert adolescent evidence into the drafting of the final Dakar Declaration, a document that UNICEF intends to echo through regional economic communities such as CEMAC. Second, to feed the same evidence back into Brazzaville, where ministries in charge of primary education and social affairs have launched their own mid-term policy reviews.
While the Summit cannot legislate, its moral authority rests on the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child and on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, both instruments ratified by the Republic of the Congo. By foregrounding girls’ testimonies, the organisers hope to transform these legal texts from archival references into living commitments measurable in enrolment rates, scholarship schemes and maternal health indicators.
À retenir
Six Congolese adolescents join peers from twenty-three other nations in Dakar to ensure that girls’ priorities on schooling, health and climate resilience enter continental and national policy blueprints. Their mandate illustrates a broader movement that treats youth not as a demographic challenge but as strategic partners in governance.
Le point juridique/éco
Under Congolese law, equality between the sexes is enshrined in the 2015 Constitution, while the Child Protection Code of 2010 operationalises international commitments. The Dakar Summit offers a complementary, soft-law mechanism to accelerate compliance without antagonising state sovereignty. Economically, the proposed measures—particularly universal secondary education—carry upfront budgetary costs but promise long-term dividends in human capital, as evidenced by World Bank modelling across Sub-Saharan Africa. For Brazzaville, aligning domestic spending with the Summit’s recommendations would therefore constitute not merely a moral gesture but a rational investment in sustainable growth.