The 100 Women Lobby Group (100WLG), a support platfprm for women politicians, has called on gender desk officers in Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to develop strategies that will enable the implementation of the National Gender Policy (NGP) in the country.
Program Officer of the group Onome Oyedele, stated this wednesday, in Abuja, during a workshop on Policy Dialogue under its Women’s Voice and Leadership (WVL) Nigerian Project organized in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs (FMoWA) .
Oyodele, highlighted the benefits of the NGP, assuring that its implemention will reduce prevailing cases of Gender Based Violence (GBV), increase women’s participation in every sector and advance gender equality.
“The workshop was to enable participants familiarise, understand and be able to plan strategies that would aide in the implementation of NGP in every sector,” she said.
Responding, the Assistant Chief Administrative Officer at the FMoWA Abiara Oluwabusayo, stressed the need for desk officers to know the importance of the NGP to enable them advocate and ensure its implementation.
He enjoined Gender Desk Officers in all the MDAs to ensure the adequate mainstreaming of the NGP in their work, stressing that this will improve access to human rights, women empowerment, promote gender equality and remove all biasness and gender inequality.
Similarly, the Director, Centre of Gender and Women’s Studies, University of Jos Prof. Irene Agunloye, said the NGP aims to promote gender equality, women empowerment and social inclusion for planning and national development.
According to her, the NGP is a legal document that can be used to check some of the gender disparities in the society, maintaining that stereotypes have remained because people have been socialised to think in a particular way.
Gender roles are socially constructed, so therefore, they can be deconstructed. All we need to do is to keep working on deconstructing them by continuous sensitisation, advocacies, collaboration and awareness on gender to bridge the gender gap.
She assured that if the NGP is fully implemented factors hindering gender equality, social inclusion for vulnerable groups would be addressed to enable good governance and more participation of women in politics, economy and other areas.
The university Don also highlighted the need for more advocacies and involvement of men on gender issues to improve equity in all sectors.
