Commissioners of Women Affairs from six geopolitical zones have pledged to drive women’s economic empowerment policy at local levels for national development.
The commissioners made the pledge on Tuesday in Abuja at a two-day forum for state Commissioners of Women Affairs on the domestication of the national policy on women’s economic empowerment organised by the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies with the support of the Development Research and Projects Centre.
The National WEE policy and action plan was launched in May 2023 as a holistic and robust plan that leverages diverse approaches and perspectives to redefine the Federal Government’s approach to women’s economic empowerment.
The domestication of the National Women Economic Empowerment Policy is key to attaining sustainable economic growth and bridging the gender gaps at Nigeria’s subnational and national levels.
The forum is part of the ongoing efforts to ensure that all the states in the country adopt and domesticate the National WEE policy to strengthen access to finance, capacity building, equipment, foreign markets, and skills acquisition.
Speaking at the forum, the Minister of Women Affairs, Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye, called on governments at all levels to invest in the economic growth and development of women.
She stressed that access to finance and equipment at the community, local, and zonal levels will help to reduce the poverty and suffering of women in Nigeria.
“We must be practical in our approach and give Nigerian women the opportunities they need to grow. Opportunities such as machines and equipment, processing opportunities, finances, and market access are needed for the women to grow”, she noted.
The minister disclosed that 15 states have been provided adequate facilities for producing and processing rice and other agricultural output as part of the Federal Government’s efforts to boost food security and reduce poverty amongst women.
The Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Welfare in Akwa Ibom state, Dr Ini Adiakpan, emphasised that a policy was needed to set the pace for the implementation of economic empowerment for women.
“If we don’t have a policy for implementation, there won’t be the political will to drive it. The policy sets the pace for the policymakers and the policy implementers to drive it to the needed aim. Everybody talks about women’s economic empowerment but how far have we gone? Have we been able to assess the impact of the empowerment?
“By the time we are done here, the policy framework will be spelt out, and the commissioners in all the states including the mandate secretary of the FCT will now be able to go places, and cascade to the grassroots and know the actual empowerment that has been done over the years, and to also see the impact among the women.
“When you do such a review, you will be able to see a lot of gaps, and we will not be able to see how to close the gaps. If women must get the equality that we are talking about, then we must address the poverty of the women,” she said.
Earlier in her speech, the Executive Director of the DRPC in Nigeria, Dr Judith-Ann Walker, revealed that the domestication process will start with the first cluster with seven states, and in the coming months, eight more states will be selected to support the domestication of the National WEE policy.
“On a final note, I would like to draw from the NIPSS Report Senior Executive Course 43, of 2021: Getting Things Done: Strategies for Policy and Program Implementation in Nigeria. This important NIPSS report, which all of us should read. The report drew attention to the importance of strengthening policy implementation at the subnational level and recommended several administrative and technical strategies to support policy implementation.
“States implementing projects and programmes as part of a policy are more likely to attract donor funding; to be able to track performance; and to coordinate the efforts of all line Ministries, Departments, and Agencies implementing WEE-facing activities.
“NIPSS working in collaboration with dRPC has committed to supporting the states here today, and the new states to be selected, hopefully with the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs to domesticate the WEE policy for true policy implementation”, she said.
The Director-General of the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies, Prof Ayo Omotayo, disclosed that he believed that the National WEE policy document could transform women’s economic status and allow their active participation in the policy process and all productive sectors of our country.
‘’This, therefore, presupposes the need for a collective effort of all critical stakeholders to ensure that the goals of WEE are attained. It is our sincere hope that through this Forum, stakeholders will engage in meaningful and effective conversations for collective action for the domestication of the WEE programme at the sub-national levels,” he noted.
On her part, the Senior Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Women Affairs, Fatima Faruk, said the forum will kick-start the process of domesticating the WEE policy document in Kano, Kaduna, Lagos, Akwa-Ibom, and other states.
“Women play a vital role in the economy, and empowering them can lead to increased productivity, innovation, and overall societal advancement,” Faruk highlighted.
