To encourage more female participation in engineering, Presidential Implementation Committee on Technology Transfer and the National Agency for Science Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI) have launched a ‘Developing Engineering Leaders Through HER initiative to fund innovative and commercially viable ideas in engineering and technology, proposed by women. (DELT-HER)’.
The project aims to address the gender gap in Nigeria’s engineering sector.
At the launch of the project, at the weekend, in Abuja, the Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) of NASENI, Kahlil Halilu, said recent statistics revealed the dire need for deliberate actions to be targeted at the existing gender imbalance in the engineering sector, to inspire inclusion, while also expanding contribution channels to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
According to Halilu, the agency, through the initiative, intends to double the number of female engineers in the country over the next five years by working extensively at the level of secondary education, which is where young girls make vital decisions regarding career choices.
Halilu observed that the global average for female representation in engineering is 28 per cent, which is only a little above one in four; but in Nigeria, only five per cent, showing that only one in 20 Nigerian engineers is a woman.
He said: “Interestingly, it was just in December 2023 that the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) elected the first female President in its history, Mrs Margaret Oguntala. She happens to be the 34th president of the NSE, which means all previous 33 presidents were men.
“This gives one an idea of the starkness of the gender imbalance in the sector. It is this imbalance that DELT-HER seeks to correct, by focusing attention and funding on young women, and, very importantly, creating and cultivating public awareness around the need to train and mentor more women into the engineering profession.”
He explained that DELT-HER is an “opportunity platform”, through which girls and young women can pitch and present their exciting and groundbreaking engineering ideas, for funding by NASENI through our Presidential Implementation Committee on Technology Transfer (PICTT).
President of NSE, Oguntala, lamented that women remain significantly underrepresented in the engineering workforce, facing barriers and challenges that hinder their full participation and advancement in the field.
Chairman of PICTT, Dr Mohammed Dahiru, noted that the committee, in the quest to fulfil the bilateral agreement between the Federal Republic and Czech Republic, had in the last two years, been sponsoring Research and Development projects nationwide under the Delta-2 programme.
