DIWA 2025 Development Impact Summit presents maternal health and agriculture evidence

Development Impact West Africa (DIWA), a partnership between GIMPA and the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA) at the University of California, Berkeley, hosted the 2025 Development Impact Summit at the Fiesta Royale Hotel in Accra on 26 and 27 August 2025. The theme was “Advancing Evidence-Informed Policymaking for Sustainable Development in West Africa”.

The first day opened with welcome and partner remarks and a keynote from the Office of the President, followed by presentations on willingness to pay for solar lanterns, LPG safety sensitisation and resource-based conflict between herders and farmers in Nigeria. A panel discussed translating evidence into policy in Africa and another how to build an inclusive research ecosystem. A presentation examined the impact of Ghana’s free maternal health policy on family planning and on infant and child feeding practices.

The second day covered an impact evaluation of Ghana’s undergraduate pre-engineering programme, the Togo Data Lab, the effects of early childhood education in Benin, a panel on institutionalising and sustainably funding evaluation in Africa, a study of irrigation and smallholder productivity under Ghana’s One Village One Dam policy, ECOWAS free movement, and experiences from DIWA Visiting Fellows.