By Justina Auta
The 100 Women Lobby Group (100WLG), an NGO, has tasked gender desk officers on implementation of the National Gender Policy (NGP) in Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs).
At a workshop on Policy Dialogue under its Women’s Voice and Leadership (WVL) Nigerian Project, the group urged the officers to deploy strategies to bridge the gender gap.
The workshops was in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs (FMoWA) in Abuja.
Mrs Onome Oyedele, Programme Officer, 100WLG for WVL, said the workshop would enable participants plan strategies to aid the implementation of NGP in every sector.
Oyodele said that the full implementation of the NGP would reduce prevailing cases of Gender Based Violence (GBV), increase women’s participation in every sector and advance gender equality.
Mr Abiara Oluwabusayo, Assistant Chief Administrative Officer, FMoWA, would coach desk officers on the importance of the NGP to enable them advocate and ensure its implementation.
“ This workshop is to create awareness on gender policy document to enable the participants know the importance of the National Gender Policy (NGP) documents.
“ The Gender Desk Officers in all the MDAs are to go back to their offices and make sure they mainstream the NGP in everything they are doing in their places of work.
“This will improve access to human rights, women empowerment, promote gender equality and remove all biasness and gender inequality,’’ he said.
Prof. Irene Agunloye, Director, Centre of Gender & Women’s Studies, University of Jos, said the NGP aim to promote gender equality, women empowerment and social inclusion for planning and national development.
“The NGP is a legal document that we can use to check some of the disparities that we see in the society.
“ These stereotypes are there because people have been socialised to think like that. Gender roles are socially constructed, so therefore, they can be deconstructed.
“All we need to is to keep working on deconstructing them by continuous sensitisation, advocacies, collaboration and awareness to bridge the gender gap.”
According to her, the NGP, if fully implemented will address factors hindering gender equality, social inclusion for vulnerable groups, ensure good governance and more participation of women in politics, economy and other areas.
She also highlighted the need for more advocacies and involvement of men on gender issues to improve equity in all sectors.
