ANALYST STRESSES IMPORTANCE OF GENDER EQUITY

February 5, 2004 – (Daily Champion - Lagos) A gender analyst, M.S Okwuchi Kasali, has stressed the importance of gender equity, saying that it will promote women's economic security and contribute to the eradication of poverty among women.

Mrs. Kasali spoke at a one day workshop on "Hindrance/Impediment to Women's Effective Participation in 2003 Election organised by the National Council of Women's Societies, Lagos chapter in collaboration with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Delivering her paper titled "creating Enabling Environment for Gender Equity", she said that because women are active in all three types of labour, reproductive, productive, and community often described as "triple role", most development projects have focused on women's reproductive work as caregivers and families ignoring women's economic roles and contributions.

In addition, she said that while men have formal leadership roles and perform high-status task, women often are relegated to organizing and supporting work.
She also identified traditional family structure as one of the factors that holds down women, as it does not allow them to inherit property.

Citing the advantages of gender equity, she said, it will engender macro-economic framework and build capacity of countries to manage globalization.

Speaking further, she said it will strengthen women's economic capacity and rights, adding that it will bring gender analysis to economic policies and the generation of public resources by means of gender reponsive budget analysis.

In all, she said that institutional support plays an important role in furthering and strengthening the cause of women in working towards gender equity through women's organization.

She also stressed the need for public and formal affirmation of women's rights saying it has a multiple effect when institutions and government are publicly committed to providing and organising tools for women.

On her part, Dr (Mrs) Bolere Elizabeth Ketebu-Nwokeafor, National president, National Council of Women's Societies, (NCWS), who spoke on Affirmative Action in Nigeria defined it as a planned action/intervention programme that seeks to remedy observed imbalance in society emanating from past discrimination against women.

Affirmative Action strategies, she said, usually include expansion of the pool outside of traditional channels to specifically appoint, recruit, promote, retain and train more women all targeted at improving their opportunities to participation in public life for society to attain gender balance.

From: http://allafrica.com/stories/200402050554.html