Women Empowerment: Minister Partners NGO’s

The Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Hajiya Zainab Maina, says she is collaborating with gender-based NGOs to mainstream gender into the development process.

She made the remark on Tuesday in Abuja at a capacity building dialogue with gender-based NGOs, with the theme, ‘‘The role of NGOs in promoting a Gender Equitable Society’’.

Gender mainstreaming is a strategy for making the concern of women and men an integral part of the design.

It is also a concept that deals with implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes in all political, economic and societal spheres so that men and women benefits equally.

Maina said the role of NGOs could not be overemphasised and described them as catalysts for social change.

“Gender mainstreaming is a human rights issue, adopting it means that we have accepted that there are gender biases in policies and institutions resulting in gender equality.

“Gender issues are not exclusively women issues; they are developmental issues which affect both men and women.”

Maina said the ultimate goal of gender mainstreaming was to promote gender equality through the strengthening of governance processes for the full utilisation of material and human resources.

This, she added, was to ensure that women gain greater benefits.

According to her, NGOs are indispensable organisations for the realisation of the success of the policies of the ministry and for the realistic advancement of women in the country.

She said the ministry had been working with more than 300 women-focused organisations positioned on different thematic areas in line with the Beijing platform for action on critical areas of concern.

Maina promised that the organisations would be further developed so as to attract funding form donor agencies.

Also, Mrs Wunmi Asubiaro-Dada, the Resident Technical Expert for the Women’s’ Right Advancement and Protection Alternative, an NGO, said there was a need for gender equality legislation in the country

She said that Nigeria needed gender equality requirements to address the challenges of the rising cases of gender based violence, discriminatory laws and low representation of women in the development process.

Asubiaro-Dada called for the bridging of the wide gap for the protection of rights of women and children through gender responsive budget.

She also urged for the review of discriminatory laws against women, saying there were new forms of violence against women which were not listed in the penal code