Nigeria’s Minister of Women Affairs, Pauline Tallen has tasked agencies in the country to promote gender parity in all sectors as well as ensure that the country meets the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
Dame Tallen while giving her remarks at the event organised by a consortium of NGOs in Abuja with the theme; “Partnership for Goals: Advancing the Gender Agender for Sustainable development” said Nigeria is yet to achieve the 35% affirmative action which she said was hindering the achievements of the SDGs.
“The 17 SDGs will never be achieved if women are not in the centre stage, though we have robust policies like the National Gender Policy, we have an Armed Forces Gender Policy which is ensuring that all security outfits are mainstreaming gender issues, ….we need these policies to be fully implemented by all sectors,” she said.
The Women Affairs Minister added that the fight for “Gender equality must begin from the home,“ tasking parents to instil in their children the values that would engender equity and equality.
Highlighting the Nigerian government’s stride in achieving the SDGs, the Senior Special Assistant to The President on Sustainable Development Goals, Princess Adejoke Orelope said the Adefulire government has been providing technical and financial support to the sub-national government to “Ensure the integration of the SDGs into their state development plans.”
She said as indicated by the 2020 Second Voluntary National Review on the SDGs, Nigeria made progress in reducing “Child and early forced marriage before the age of 15…” but regressed in women’s political participation.
While delivering the keynote paper on “The State of Women & Girls’ Agency in Nigeria; Progress, challenges, Opportunities,” Dr Amina Amina Salihu, the Senior Programme Officer of MacArthur Foundation acknowledged that Nigeria was making progress though slowly.
She said the changes were happening in incremental steps as Nigerian women can no “Speak truth to power & speak power to truth,” as evidenced in the sustained protest by women when they converged the National Assembly in Abuja after the legislators threw out gender bills.
Dr Amina described “Poverty of time” as one of the greatest challenges facing the Nigerian woman as she continues to dedicate her time to unremunerated chores; adding that the Nigerian woman is still discriminated against in her inability to confer citizenship status on her spouse of foreign nationality.
Strategic thinking, socialisation as well as intergenerational mentoring provide opportunities for passing on the core gender issues so that across board there is continuation and interpretation.
Commitment From UN SYSTEM, Csos
The United Nations Resident Coordinator in Nigeria, Mr Matthias Schmale said the UN system is“Consciously and decidedly driving a gender parity agenda in our system by setting targets and monitoring in various areas including leadership senior management.”
Mr Schmale emphasised the need “To break institutional barriers that prevent cross-sectoral integration between gender equality, the disproportionate effect of poverty on women, disaster risk reduction, access to quality healthcare, education, climate action, environmental management, gender budgeting and development planning in general.”
The UNFPA used the moment to again talk about women’s reproductive health while pledging commitment to “Achieving Gender Equality through our 3 transformational goals of Zero Maternal Mortality, Zero Unmet Need for Family Planning and Zero Gender-Based Violence and Harmful Practices.”
The UNFPA Resident Representative, MS. Ulla Mueller referenced the Nigeria Demographic Health Survey 2018 which points to only 46 percent of women being “Able to make decisions regarding their sexual and reproductive health and rights; 56 percent say that decisions about their own health care are made mainly by their husbands with only 11 percent of married women able to make any decisions about their health care”.
She pledged her support to work with stakeholders to operationalise gender policies and advocate for bills and laws that support women’s rights in all their diversity to increase the agency of women and girls for SRHR decision-making
The President and Chief Executive Officer of Pathfinder International, Lois Quam, noted that eight countries have female presidents, and the World Trade Organization (WTO) is headed today by a woman, adding that women have been at the forefront of mitigating the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccines distribution.
She applauded the fact that women are shattering the glass ceilings in every field including sports.
The meeting convened by Pathfinder International in partnership with the She Forum Africa to deepen awareness and build momentum for gender equality had panel discussions, then took commitments, #ICommit from all attendees, for a better gender-sensitive society.
PIAK
