Women

Exclusive Op-Ed—Rio+20 and the Role of Nigerian Women in Sustainable Development

Published

12 years ago

June 22, 2012

By Jill Sheffield and Danielle Nierenberg

This week, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development will draw global leaders to Rio de Janeiro to discuss how to ‘green’ the economy and reduce poverty around the world. The aim is to develop global goals to meet Nigeria’s and our world’s current needs—for food, health, energy, housing and other necessities—while also preserving the environment.

For many months, conference leaders focused lead-up discussions on issues including carbon emissions, clean water, and agricultural productivity, among others. However, paradoxically, there was little attention to a core issue in planning and implementing sustainability: ensuring women’s equal access to resources and services, including reproductive health.

The meeting, known as Rio+20, will mark the twentieth anniversary of 1992’s Earth Summit in the same city, which resulted in landmark conventions on climate change and biodiversity. The 1992 Summit included a call for gender equality, but no mention of reproductive health, or specific investment goals. So today there is, again, a historic opportunity to acknowledge and support the central role of women in sustainability and poverty reduction efforts.

As the world population passes 7 billion and Nigeria’s population nears 160 million, increased access to reproductive health and voluntary family planning is vital. According to a 2003 Guttmacher Institute study, nearly 215 million women in developing countries, including one-third of Nigerian women have an unmet need for contraception. Research shows that if we were to meet women’s needs to plan the number and spacing of their pregnancies, population growth would slow and global carbon emissions would decrease by between 8 and 15 percent—the equivalent of stopping all deforestation today.

The human toll of the unmet need for contraception is staggering. A 2006 Guttmacher Institute study reports that 10 percent of pregnancies among Nigerian women are unwanted, leading to approximately 748,000 unsafe abortions, and nearly 2 million miscarriages. Among women terminating their pregnancies in abortion, nearly 1 in 5 do so because they say they are too young to be mothers.

Women are also critical in agriculture and food security efforts. Women farmers make up 80 percent of the agricultural labor force in Nigeria. This percentage holds consistent in other African countries and in some parts of Asia. Estimates by the Food and Agriculture Organization show that if women had equal access to resources, such as land, training, technology, and credit, global food production would increase by 20 to 30 percent, which could reduce the number of hungry people in the world by 12 to 17 percent.

This extensive and intimate relationship with the land means that women, often exclusively, have extensive knowledge of traditional remedies and plants, indigenous farming practices and local methods of crop cultivation. Agriculture development policies and programs should be inclusive of women to meet local needs.

Investing in women’s education furthers economic goals and improves the health and wellbeing of future generations. According to the World Bank, a one year increase in education for women corresponds to an increase of US$700 in GDP per capita. In addition, educated women tend to marry later and have fewer children. Their own children, in turn, tend to have lower infant mortality rates, higher school enrollment, and suffer less from malnutrition.

As leaders look to the future and establish global sustainability goals, specific goals to promote gender equality in Nigeria and around the world must be set. Doing so will benefit women’s families, communities and nations today, and the environment and global economies tomorrow. Recognizing the important role women play as environmental stewards, food producers, business owners, health care providers, and mothers is the key to creating a prosperous and sustainable future for everyone.

Jill Sheffield is President of Women Deliver (www.womendeliver.org), Danielle Nierenberg is project director of the Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet project (www.NourishingthePlanet.org).

Women

The Wise Woman

Published

1 week ago

April 26, 2024

The Tide

The wise woman builds her home. Mothers are supposed to live exemplary lives. The roles of mothers in the building of the modern Christian home cannot be overemphasized.
The function of the mother is to help the man build the home. She is a helper. A helper to the husband when the man is not doing well. It is important for the wise woman to assist when the man is not able to meet up with the items needed in the home.
A wise woman needs to reference God first and then the husband. Also the wise woman should respect her husband.
Caring for her own children as well as others is very crucial.
Do not despise children from other mothers. Discipline the child who is going the wrong way.
Ensure family bonding, show love and don’t discriminate. Connection with children is very important, especially the females. Find out who is her friend. Also find out the kind of lives they live. Caution, counsel and guide so that they make good partners.
Teaching children the dos and donts should start from birth. Inculcate the word of God in them so that when they grow, will not depart from it.
From the Scripture, some women influenced their families positively. Virgin Mary influenced the world, she never destroyed herself hence she gave birth to Jesus Christ.
Elizabeth, despite her age, God blessed her as she waited patiently.
A wise should curb favouritism in the family and love children equally. Whether a child is your biological child or not, it is necessary to show love equally. Reprimanding the children should be the function of both man and wife.

Women

The Desire Of Every Woman In Marriage

Published

1 week ago

April 26, 2024

The Tide

Marriage is beautiful when there is love. Before and after marriage, couples show love to themselves. But you discover that after some years, that same love turn to be something else. A lot of people start going through emotional trauma in the hands of their loved spouses.
There are many things the woman desires to keep the love on as far as marriage is concerned.
Women are blesssed with feminine abilities that can be used for good in husbands lives. With your abilities, you can create a marriage that will last till couples get old.
A woman needs
man that is honest, trustworthy, nice, loving and financially stable.
There are no two ways about finance in marriage. No matter the level of love, if there is no reasonable finance, it is always difficult to manage the home.
Referring to the Biblical belief in Genesis 3: “Your desire shall be unto you…….. “
What this means is that whatever the woman desires in life shall be provided as far as she performs her role in her home. There are many things the woman expects her husband to take care of.
A woman wants a husband that is not lazy, at least helping to do one or two things when he is at home.
A man that is educated and intelligent so that they will transfer such traits to their children.
Knowing that there are traits that her husband has, traits of taking care of people, giving freely to people and caring for her family. She expects him to exhibit them.
A woman wants to love a husband that has family interest at heart. A man that spends time with his family, remembering his family even as he is away from home.
No matter where he finds himself, he is not destracted by external influence. He returns home to his loved ones.
A woman should not antagonise her husband because of one error or the other. No matter the level of offence he may have committed, you still show some love.
According to the Scripture, it is with wisdom that a woman builds her home. As far as he rreturns home, you accept him as your own.
It is not as if the woman will not monitor her husband, but to certain limit. Don’t be a monitoring spirit. Don’t allow anything to take your joy.
Don’t loose trust in your husband. The idea of checking your husband’s phone should be discouraged. The more you check your husband and his phone, the more you loose your joy.
You can show some form of jealousy, but to an extent. Cooperation, respect and being honoured from time to time is what the woman desires.
The home should not be a battle ground for a woman and man. A woman should be able to ask herself if the check on her husband will pay her any good.
Draw a line to a point where you checkmate your husband’s activities.
A woman wants a man that will love her and telling her you love her will be all she desires.

Women

The Desire Of Every Woman In Marriage

Published

4 weeks ago

April 5, 2024

The Tide

A woman needs a man that is honest, trustworthy, nice, loving and financially stable.
There are no two ways about finance in marriage. No matter the level of love, If there is no money, it is always difficult.

Referring to the Biblical belief in Genesis 3:Your desire shall be unto you……..
That is one aspect the woman expects her husband to take care of.
A woman wants a husband that is not lazy, at least helping to do one or two things. A man that is educated and intelligent.
She knows that there is a trait that her husband has. Traits of taking care of people, giving freely to people and caring for her family.
A woman wants to love a husband that has family interest at heart. A man that spends time with his family, remembering his family even as he is away from home.
A woman should not antagonise her husband because of one error or the other. No matter the level of offence he may have committed, you still show some love.

According to the Scripture, it is with wisdom that the women builds her home.
It is not as if the woman will not monitor her husband, but to certain limit. Don’t be a monitoring spirit. Don’t allow anything to take your joy.
Don’t loose trust in your husband.
The idea of checking your husband’s phone should be discouraged. The more you check your husband and his phone, the more you loose your joy.

The home should not be a battle ground for a woman and man. A woman should be able to ask herself if the check on her husband will pay her any good.
Draw a line to a point where you checkmate your husband’s activities.
A woman wants a man that will love her and telling her you love her will be all she desires.