Challenges Identified

Across the Sahel, adolescents' and youth participation remains tokenistic in practice—limited, poorly structured, and concentrated at the consultative end of the spectrum with participants being informed or asked for their input, but rarely given genuine influence over the design, implementation, or monitoring of the interventions that impact their lives. For the most marginalised, even this limited inclusion is often absent. Without a structured framework to define what meaningful participation looks like and how to measure it, youth engagement risks remaining symbolic regardless of the intentions behind it. 

Bantare’s approach

Under the umbrella of Population Council, Bantare Impact Group developed the Youth Engagement Framework (YEC) for the Sahel Women's Empowerment and Demographic Dividend (SWEDD) project. A framework setting out the modalities for inclusive, systematic and meaningful participation of adolescents and youth across regional programming cycles.

The framework is based on state-of-the-art analysis and engagement tools:

• The use of the Primary and Secondary Data Analysis Matrix (MAPS) to identify vulnerability profiles and engagement opportunities.

• The definition of four levels of participation (information, consultation, collaboration, and leadership) adapted to the local contexts of the Sahel.

• Specific strategies to include the most marginalized youth, including out-of-school girls and youth living with disabilities.

• The establishment of performance indicators measuring the quality of youth engagement within the project management units (PMUs).

The YEC is designed to institutionalise youth engagement across SWEDD intervention areas, promote sustainable and meaningful participation, and support the transformation of social norms and gender equality with a monitoring and evaluation system that combines qualitative and quantitative indicators to measure the effectiveness of engagement over time. 

Outcomes

The YEC makes a key argument: that meaningful youth participation does not happen by default and cannot be assumed from good intentions alone. It requires defined levels, adapted tools, specific inclusion strategies for the most marginalised, and indicators that hold programme managers accountable for the quality of engagement.

The framework also recognises that participation and social norm transformation are not separate objectives. When youth move from being consulted to genuinely co-designing and monitoring interventions, the process itself becomes a mechanism for shifting norms around who holds knowledge, who has authority, and whose voice counts in development decisions. The longer-term ambition is to institutionalise this shift across the SWEDD intervention areas, ensuring that youth engagement becomes a non-negotiable standard embedded in programming cycles.