The Minister of Women Affairs, Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim has said the only way out of the present economic downturn in Nigeria is by entrusting women with political and economic power.
Speaking at the Gender Equality and Women Empowerment Coordination Mechanism and Institutional Strengthening Meeting on Tuesday in Abuja jointly organized by UN Women Nigeria and the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs, Sulaiman-Ibrahim said women have shown globally to be trustworthy and passionate about the family and wellbeing of the society, a virtue that makes them better administrators and managers of resources.
She said: “I tell you, if we put money in women's hands, 90% of our problems in Nigeria will vanish. When we have money in women's hands, children will go to school.”
She added that with the women controlling the economic resources of the family, children would be well catered for and issues of child abuse, criminality and insecurity would be massively reduced making the country to be on track for development.
She however lamented that as at now women are marginalized in most areas and this is telling on the nation’s economy of its future growth, calling for something to be urgent done to reverse the ugly trend.
On her part, Country Representative to UN Women Nigeria and ECOWAS, Ms. Beatrice Eyong, in her opening speech, said the GEWE zonal coordination initiative started in 2023 when UN Women and the then Minister of Womwn Affairs, Dame Pauline Tallen and the DG of Maryam Babagida Centre for Women Development wanted a catalytic intervention that would help us accelerate the achievement of GEWE goals following an alarming report published by UN Women and the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA)showing that achieving full gender equality, one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), could take close to 300 years if the current rate of progress continues.
She noted that after due review of the report and reflection of interventions and programmes and exploration of what could be done differently, we found that despite the pluralization of programmes/projects on GEWE, impacts were minimal, and change was slow because interventions were isolated, fragmented and lacked sustainable structures.
“Numerous networks, coalitions and groups that promoted gender equality and the empowerment of women (GEWE) at the states were also numerous, but coordination platforms/mechanisms were not interfacing, planning together, carrying out joint advocacies and campaigns. Couple with this weakness was poor understanding/appropriation of normative standards and frameworks and unavailability of current Gender statistics
“However, the networks, coalitions and technical groups were broad based, addressing multiple issues and possessed the potential for bigger reach, scale, and catalyze tangible outcomes for GEWE if they were supported institutionally and technically
“This evidence and conviction that a Zonal Coordination Initiative could catalyze greater change for GEWE gave rise to the GEWE zonal coordination mechanism.”
Eyong added that: “While celebrating the gains of the last two years, new challenges have arisen because of the huge global funding cuts to development, GEWE programme is badly impacted and it has become more critical for partners to work together in a harmonious ways, leveraging existing platforms, technical expertise and available funding especially domestic funding to ensure that the gains of the past are sustain and to keep on interventions for women and girls.”
She called on relevant government institutions, private sector and philanthropic organizations to invest in women, girls, men and boys by investing in coordination activities because they have potential to upscale GEWE outcomes.
She said: “To those of us on the frontlines who are championing change by demanding accountability let us not relent, but keep hope alive for better GEWE days ahead.”
High points of the event was the donation of ICT equipment to the Ministry of Women Affairs in the 36 states of the federation and FCT.
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