Coalition protests as FG’s allocation to women empowerment projects drops by 43%

A coalition of civil society organisations, including New Faces, New Voice Nigeria (NFNV-Nigeria) and the Development Research and Project Centre (DRPC), has raised concern about the decline in budgetary allocations to women’s economic empowerment (WEE) projects in Nigeria.

The Director NFNV-Nigeria, Aishatu Aminu, at a press conference held in Lagos, said federal allocation to WEE has dropped from N103. 5 billion in 2022 to N58.71 billion as captured in 2023 appropriation bill, putting the year-on-year change at -43 per cent.

Aminu lamented that the decrease in the allocation of both federal and state governments has negative consequences for the economic potential of women.

The civil society leader added that allocation dropped from 0.6 per cent of the total 2022 budget to 0.29 per cent in the 2023 appropriation. The number of WEE projects, she said, also fell from 938 in 2022 to 122 projects in 2023.

Aminu noted women contribute substantially to the economy but get low attention in public financing. She said if women are given opportunities to access resources and life support facilities as their male counterparts, the social impacts would be far-reaching, especially in education, economic growth and health.

She said: “WEE components give women access to income and assets, control of and benefit from society, and power to make decisions. This means that denying women these opportunities have equally denied them voice, income, assets, opportunities and power to make their own decisions.

“WEE components include all activities targeting women and young girls as economic actors, including capacity building, vocational training, skill acquisition, grants and start-up funds, Livelihood support, empowerment materials, reorientation and rehabilitation.”

The NFNV boss protested that the situation is even worse at the state level. For instance, she explained, the 2022 Lagos state budget does not indicate any particular budget lines for women’s economic development.

“However, the state only allocated N60 million as an overhead subvention for the Women Development Centre (WDC) to train women on different occupational skills in the 2022 budget, which represents six per cent of the capital budget and three per cent of the budget size,” she stated.

The coalition demanded that both federal and state governments increase allocations to WEE-related projects and streamline such projects across agencies, ministries and departments (MDAs) for effective implementation.

It also requested an effective monitoring and evaluation framework for WEE projects.