allAfrica.com: Nigeria: Women Seek Strategy to Address Gender Concerns (Page 1 of 2)

The Federal Government has been enjoined to establish and strengthen gender units or gender focal points at all levels in all ministries to ensure that gender concerns are mainstreamed into policy making and budgetary processes.

It was also urged to strengthen the capacity and resources of the Federal and State Ministries especially Ministries of Women Affairs and Finance for gender sensitive budgeting planning and implementation.

Above recommendations formed part of a statement issued by a coalition of non-governmental organisations which focus on gender issues in Nigeria, ahead the 52nd session of the United Nations (UN) Commission on the status of women; while the group also stressed the need for the development of a strategy for addressing gender concerns as a pre-requisite for accessing the Debt Relief Gains for every Government Ministry, Department or Agency in the country.

The statement was issued jointly issued by the Nigeria Gender Budget Network (NGBN), Women Advocates Research and Documentation Center (WARDC), Rural Women Empowerment Network (RUWEN), Partnership for Justice (PJ), Centre for Democracy and Development, National Association of Democratic Lawyers (NADL), FIDA, and Anambra Civil Resource, Development and Documentation Center (CIRRDOC) among others, who rose from NGO meetings facilitated and supported by Oxfam GB.

At the meetings, the groups noted that Nigeria like some other African countries has made efforts to promote gender equity and women empowerment by acceding to several policy commitments at global, continental, sub regional and national levels.

These include the Beijing Platform for Actions 1995, the Paris Declaration 2005, the Millennium Development Goals framework the Protocol to the Rights of Women in Africa, the ECOWAS gender policy and the National Gender Policy 2006.

They also noted the emerging trends in Nigeria's macro economic policy environment and the opportunities presented by such trends for an improvement in our national poverty diagnostics. These include the seven point agenda, vision 20/20/20, the NEEDS review process and the establishment of a Virtual poverty Fund from the Debt Relief Gains.

To them, the opportunity to address the high incidence of feminised poverty especially at grassroots level is to a certain extent also reflected in today's public policy discourse.

According to the provisional figures from the 2006 national population census, women make up 48.78% of the total population, the coalition revealed.

"The most recent available national MDG progress report states that the gross enrollment ratio for boys has remained consistently higher than that of girls by over 10% with a male: female ratio of 55.9%:44.1.%. At the level of secondary enrollment, girls have a much higher drop out rate such that by terminal class only 48.83% reach senior secondary school. Consequently only 39.70% of female students graduate from universities and 37.54% from polytechnics".

Also, they disclosed, access to improved maternal healthcare remains a major problem for a larger percentage of women in Nigeria especially those in the rural areas. With an estimated 37,000 (WHO) annual maternal deaths, Nigeria has the second highest maternal mortality ratio burden in the world at a rural: urban figure of 828:351 per every 100,000 live births.

In a recent survey one in ten women cited obtaining permission to visit hospitals as a problem. Other reasons cited include money for treatment and distance to health facility.

To the coalition members, "women's access to economic opportunities is often limited by factors such as the multiple roles they play, the non recognition of those roles in workplace policy and the steep conditions for accessing loans and micro credit. Since they make up almost one half of the country's population, their exclusion in this area means that close to one half of the country's potential is also left largely untapped".

There are grave implications for this as far as becoming one of the 20 fastest growing economies by the year 2020 (vision 20/20/20) is concerned, they noted also.

On the issue of political empowerment, the groups noted that in general there is a slight overall increase in the percentage of female political office holders at both appointive and elective levels. This increase is however still very far from the 30% recommended by policy frameworks such as the Platform for Action, and the National Gender Policy.

Recognising the need for a more balanced development pattern in Nigeria, the several policy commitments to which Nigeria has acceded at global, continental and national levels, and reiterating the need for concrete strategies to improve the relative well being of women, the women groups called on the Nigerian Government to develop and articulate a strategy for reflecting and addressing gender concerns within the context of emerging policy frame-works such as the seven point agenda and vision 20/20/20.

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