Governments at all levels have been enjoined mainstream gender sensitivity in all stages of the budgeting cycle from preparation, passage and approval, monitoring and reporting, evaluation and audit.
This should be facilitated by the gathering and analysis of relevant gender disaggregated data by the National Bureau of Statistics and other data gathering agencies.
These formed part of the communiqué at the end of a two-day capacity building workshop on Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) which was convened by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) with the support of the European Union-United Nations Spotlight Initiative held at Hotel De Bently, Utako Abuja on January 20 and 21 2020.
Participation was drawn from Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), Women’s Groups, the Media and Key Populations from Spotlight’s Focal states of Adamawa, Cross River, Ebonyi, Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Lagos and Sokoto.
The communiqué was jointly signed by the Lead Director, Centre for Social Justice, Barr. Eze Onyekpere, Women and Youth Empowerment for Advancement and Health Initiative’s Aishatu Margima and others.
The meeting resolved that “Nigeria should activate its law enforcement mechanisms and rule of law institutions for the protection of the rights of women to freedom from violence. This will involve training and capacity building, increased budgetary provisions accompanied by full releases and utilization of appropriated funds.
“The Audit Reform Bill currently pending in the National Assembly should specifically include gender audit as one of the audits to be carried out by the Auditor-General of the Federation.
“Governments should deploy the maximum of available resources for the protection of women from violence. This should not be limited to financial resources but should include human, information, technology and ecological resources.”
