From Magnus Eze, Enugu
Low awareness, insufficient budgetary allocations for empowerment programmes, inadequate high capacity building skills and poor implementation of existing projects, have been identified as challenges facing women economic advancement in South East.
These were brought to the fore at a policy dialogue of the Partnership for the Advancement of Women’s Economic Development (PAWED) project held in Enugu on June 30, 2022.
Participants were drawn from women-focused civil society organizations (Women’s Economic Empowerment Cooperatives); representatives of relevant government ministries, media and the University of Nigeria (UNN) Gender and Development Centre.
Programme Manager, Good Governance of South Saharan Development Organisation (SSDO), implementers of the project, Ms Nkem Awachie, said despite facing unique challenges due to gender-based discrimination, women in South East steadily work towards economic empowerment for themselves and their families.
Awachie noted that the PAWED project was formed to strengthen the capacity of women’s economic collectives in Enugu and Anambra States to be able to conduct high impact evidence-informed advocacy to improve livelihood of economically active women and girls.
Funded by the development Research and Projects Centre (dRPC), the PAWED project was inaugurated February this year.
However, to redress the situation, Enugu State Commissioner for Budget and Planning, Dr David Ugwunta, urged women groups to key-in and follow-up various government economic empowerment programmes in state.
He admonished them to work collectively by creating new economic empowerment programmes or adopting any one already working in other states and engage relevant ministries with it: “We have the ongoing state’s Traders Empowerment Scheme; Agro-Processing, Productivity Enhancement and Livelihood Support (APPEALS); the Artisan Support Fund and the IT Support Fund and more.
“These empowerment programmes if tapped into and harnessed would go a long way to further achieve the objective of our gathering here today, which is giving empowerment to vast majority of economically disadvantaged women.
“It is believed that women economic empowerment is strategic; since if a woman is economically empowered, her entire immediate family is carried along. So, if we get it right starting with the women, families are taken care of.”
Also, Prof. Anthonia Achike, Director, University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) Gender and Development Centre, harped on the need for robust advocacy visits and engagements with relevant ministries especially that of Gender and Social Affairs as well as Trade and Investment: “We are ignited by the support and ideas of the commissioner and for me it is the type of actionable steps we need to take to get the needed positive results that will work for the generality of our rural poor women.”