Centre inaugurates team to probe low women’s participation in govt

THE National Centre for Women Development (NCWD), Abuja has set up a study team to account for the declining participation of Nigerian women in politics from 1999-2015, with the key objective of promoting women’s participation in governance, as a baseline for the implementation of the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

In a statement signed by the centre’s Director of Planning, Research and Statistics, Mr. Sadeeq Omar, the Director General, Lady Onyeka Onwenu, while inaugurating the team, demanded that the poor representation and participation of women at both political and appointive positions at all levels of governance in Nigeria since 1999 should not only be discussed but also evidence-based.

Lady Onwenu noted that for gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls to be achieved in line with the new SDGs, there was need for adequate data to provide impartial and comparable basis for evaluating progress towards the goals agreed upon at various world conferences to improve the situation of women.

“This development has necessitated the setting up of the team on the collation of data in collaboration with the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The activities to be implemented under the project include a desk review of existing literature, field visits for the collation of data, data analysis, peer review and validation meetings, the development of policy briefs, public presentation of the report and hosting of the collated data on the NCWD gender data bank website,” she said.

Responding, a representative of team, Hajia Amina Salihu, promised to deliver on the mandate.