Nigeria: Women Seek Strategy to Address Gender Concerns
By Abimbola Akosile

January 29, 2008 (This Day) 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.

Government was also urged to institutionalise the inclusion of gender concerns in budgetary formulation and implementation, which can be done by issuance of a practice directive requesting MDAs to reflect gender at budget design stage and also by developing gender specific indicators for the monitoring and evaluation phase of the budgetary process.

The government was also enjoined to review the 1999 Constitution, and confer justiceability status on Chapter 2 of the Constitution.

International organisations were enjoined to strengthen the capacity of local non-governmental organisations working in the area of gender equality, women empowerment and gender sensitive budgeting; and to increase their efforts at harmonizing on gender related development intervention and facilitating local ownership of processes as proposed in the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness.

Civil Society Organisations were also called upon to intensify efforts towards improved cohesion with respect to gender related advocacy and engagement; and to engage in aggressive public awareness and enlightenment process to clarify the meaning of gender and how it relates to the Nigerian context.

The corporate sector was enjoined to address relevant gender issues in their corporate social responsibility frameworks, make provision for gender friendly work place policies, and facilitate improved access to financial resources for emerging women entrepreneurs in both urban and rural areas.

Other coalition members include the Model Mission of Assistance in Africa (MOMI AFRICA), Women Unity Forum (WUF), Women Consortium of Nigeria (WOCON), Women in Law and Development Center (WLDCN), Women in Law and Development Africa (WILDAF), and Women Organisation for Representation and National Cohesion (WORNACO).

The rest are Gender and Constitution Reform Network (GECORN), African Women Lawyers Association (AWLA), Gender and Child Rights Initiative, Center for Rule of Law, Committee for the Defense of Human Rights (CDHR), Association of African Women Research and Development, Women and Development Organisation (WiDO), Widows and Development Support Services Utmost caring World, Women and Children Care Association Baobab for Women's Human Rights.

The commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is a functional Commission of the United Nations Economic and Social Council, dedicated exclusively to the advancement of women.

Every year, representatives of UN member states gather at the United Nations Headquarters in New York to evaluate progress on gender equity, identify challenges, set global standards and formulate concrete policies to promote gender equity and the advancement of women worldwide.

The Commission was established by ECOSOC resolution 11(1) of 21 June 1946 with the aim to prepare reports to the Council on promoting women's rights in political, economic, civil social and educational fields.

The Commission also makes recommendations to the Council on urgent problems requiring immediate attention in the field of women's rights. The CSW also provides the space on a yearly basis for regional organisations, national organisations, NGOs CBOs, voluntary organisations and other groups who sit in consultative status on the UN ECOSOC to participate in formal deliberations of the UN on women issues.

This year's CSW holds from February 25 to March 7 and it focuses on 'Financing for Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women' as the overarching theme.

Nigeria is one of the 192 UN Member Nations having joined the on the 7th of October 1960. In addition, the country is one of those which maintain a permanent mission structure complete with an Ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary at the UN headquarters in New York, USA.

This, coupled with our ratification of several UN treaties, affirm our country's commitment to evolving policy and practice within the UN structure including core values such as equality in terms of space, opportunities, choices and access.

From:http://allafrica.com/stories/200801300480.html