{"id":247895,"date":"2026-05-17T23:35:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T03:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/17\/west-africa-bloc-turns-to-artificial-intelligence-for-digital-skills-innovation\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T00:00:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T04:00:20","slug":"west-africa-bloc-turns-to-artificial-intelligence-for-digital-skills-innovation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/17\/west-africa-bloc-turns-to-artificial-intelligence-for-digital-skills-innovation\/","title":{"rendered":"West Africa Bloc Turns to Artificial Intelligence for Digital Skills, Innovation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/bantugazette.com\/west-africa-bloc-turns-to-artificial-intelligence-for-digital-skills-innovation\/\">West Africa Bloc Turns to Artificial Intelligence for Digital Skills, Innovation<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/bantugazette.com\/west-africa-bloc-turns-to-artificial-intelligence-for-digital-skills-innovation\/\">https:\/\/bantugazette.com\/west-africa-bloc-turns-to-artificial-intelligence-for-digital-skills-innovation\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-05-17 23:35:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"bantugazette.com\">bantugazette.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>LOM\u00c9, Togo<\/strong><\/p>\n<p data-pm-slice=\"0 0 []\">The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) urged policymakers to prioritize digital skills and artificial intelligence alongside security and infrastructure to prepare young people for a rapidly changing workforce.<\/p>\n<p data-pm-slice=\"0 0 []\">The remarks came during a regional youth forum on artificial intelligence that opened Tuesday, May 12, in Lom\u00e9, Togo, organized by ECOWAS as part of activities marking the bloc\u2019s 50th anniversary.<\/p>\n<p data-pm-slice=\"0 0 []\">ECOWAS Vice-President Damtien Larbli Tchintchibidja said West Africa remains one of the world\u2019s youngest regions, with nearly 65% of its population under age 25, but this human capital has not become a driver of prosperity.<\/p>\n<p>She was represented at the event by ECOWAS Resident Representative in Togo Deweh Emily Gray.<\/p>\n<p>Gray said the forum responds to requests from West African youth during a 2025 meeting in Accra, Ghana, to achieve greater integration of digital technology and artificial intelligence into education and training.<\/p>\n<p>She said AI could support agricultural development through weather forecasting and disease detection, improve health care with AI-assisted diagnostic tools, and expand opportunities in finance and creative industries.<\/p>\n<p>Gray urged policymakers in the region to make digital skills and artificial intelligence national and regional priorities alongside sectors such as security and infrastructure.<\/p>\n<p>According to the statement, the forum is expected to produce policy recommendations to be presented to ECOWAS heads of state and government during the Summit of the Future.<\/p>\n<p>Agamo Kodzo, secretary-general of Togo\u2019s Ministry of Youth and Sports, said hosting the forum reflects the country\u2019s commitment to youth, innovation and regional integration.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/bantugazette.com\/west-africa-bloc-turns-to-artificial-intelligence-for-digital-skills-innovation\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>West Africa Bloc Turns to Artificial Intelligence for Digital Skills, Innovation https:\/\/bantugazette.com\/west-africa-bloc-turns-to-artificial-intelligence-for-digital-skills-innovation\/ Publish Date: 2026-05-17&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":247896,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/bantugazette.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Tech-support-oversees-AI-neural-network-scaled.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[57],"class_list":["post-247895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247895"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247895"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247895\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":247897,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247895\/revisions\/247897"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}