According to Catriona Laing, the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, the United Kingdom government has started a $100 million (or 400 billion naira) program through the First Bank of Nigeria as direct assistance aimed towards women-owned businesses in Nigeria.
She announced this yesterday in Abuja at the ongoing gender and inclusion summit that was put on by the Policy Innovation Center (PIC), a project of the Nigeria Economic Summit Group.
She said that the funding is a component of the UK’s three Es projects—Educating Girls, Empowering Women, and Ending Violence Against Women and Girls—which are being implemented.
“The UK has three areas focusing on Gender. The three Es includes educating girls, empowering women and ending violence against women and girls.
“The UK has worked on education for decades now, particularly in north-east Nigeria where we have supported 1.4 million additional girls going to school.
“On the empowerment side, we recently launched a hundred million programmes through the first bank of Nigeria which will direct funding specifically to women-owned enterprises,” she said.
Gender rights are fundamental human rights, according to Laing, and everyone has a right to them. However, social standards, religious norms, and behavioral norms are used as justifications for not advancing gender equality.
She added, “We are also digitising Humanitarian services and cash transfers so that women can receive money directly into their bank account which gives them more empowerment.”
Streamlining regulations to reduce gender parity gaps has been urged as a top priority by the United States ambassador to Nigeria, Mary Beth Leonard.
According to her, the US government prioritizes gender equality globally, spending more than $200 billion annually to plan for it.
She said that, “In Nigeria, the US mission works to promote an environment that supports women’s success and addresses challenges that hold women back and to empower Nigerian women to do the same.”
“The upcoming 2023 elections present a critical opportunity to include more women in leadership positions in government. And we encourage women not only to vote on election day but also to consider running for office at all levels of government in future elections.”
“This campaign season presents an opportunity to demand candidates prioritise policies and legislations for women and girls.”
Speaking on gender equality in the workplace and employment opportunities, Alexandre Borges-Gomes, the deputy head of the European Union delegation to Nigeria, noted that a recent poll found that less than 50% of women in Nigeria hold paid jobs, compared to 76% of men.
According to Dr. Osasuyi Dirisu, deputy director of PIC, the is the first national-level organization of its sort in Africa for using behavioral insights and other cutting-edge policy tools.
She claimed that the PIC works in a number of policy areas, including accountability and transparency, health, human capital, gender and social policy, and financial and digital inclusion. “We work extensively on designing strategies, initiatives, regulations, and policies.”
Being present also ensures that the policy-making process is participative, after which we provide solutions, evaluate them, and draw lessons from them in order to scale up.
She continued by mentioning projects PIC has undertaken in the past year related to leveraging behavioral insight, sustainable and inclusive digital transformation, assessment of the context and behavioral drivers of learning poverty, and outcomes for “at risk (in and out of school children).”
A five-day gender and development course was created by PIC in partnership with the center for Gender and Social Policy Studies at the University of Ife in response to the need to strengthen capacity for gender and development. The course began in April and has attracted about 100 participants from donor organizations, the private sector, and NGOs.
We also studied the mining industry’s gender dynamics.
“We are here at the summit and hope to institutionalise and have an opportunity for stakeholders to come together to have a real conversation about gender and advanced cause to improving gender equality in Nigeria.”
