Agba: Let us adopt the needed gender lens in supporting and empowering women for sustainable COVID-19 recovery

FOR THE RECORDS

Agba: Let us adopt the needed gender lens in supporting and empowering women for sustainable COVID-19 recovery

(BEING KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY PRINCE CLEM IKANADE AGBA, HON. MINISTER OF STATE FOR BUDGET AND NATIONAL PLANNING  ON THE OCCASION OF THE  21ST REGULAR NATIONAL COUNCIL MEETING ON WOMEN AFFAIRS HELD AT UYO, AKWA IBOM STATE ON THURSDAY, 26TH AUGUST, 2021)

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It is with great honour and pleasure that I join other speakers to welcome you all to the 21ST National Council on Women Affairs. It is remarkable that the issue of Gender has become a topical issue in Nigeria and the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning (FMFBNP) is happy to be associated with it.

Let me commence this keynote address by congratulating my dear sister, Dame Pauline Tallen, the Hon Minister of Women Affairs for her innovative, pragmatic and dogged commitment to the cause and advancement of the fortunes of women in Nigeria. This occasion serves as a wakeup call for all of us to make Gender issues the centrepiece of our activities. We cannot achieve peace and sustainable development when we ignore or chose to trample on the rights of the poor and vulnerable in the society, especially women.
Gender as we generally know refers typically to masculine and feminine characteristic abilities and expectations about how women and men should behave in society. These characteristics are time bound and changeable. I  therefore see need for gender equality which means the absence of discrimination based on one’s gender in the allocation of resources, rights, responsibilities, opportunities or benefits or in access to services.

Since 1975 when the first conference on gender equality was held, the need to ensure gender equality, integration and full participation of women in development as well as in creating peace has been compelling. Although some progress has been achieved in this regards, but at the current snail pace, it will take at least a century to attain global gender parity. The urgent need to scale up actions geared towards bridging the gender gap cannot therefore be overemphasized.

The COVID-19 crisis has revealed and substantially widened the deeply ingrained gender inequalities, especially in developing countries. Women are more exposed to losing their jobs and being driven out of their legitimate businesses. They face higher difficulties in accessing financial assistance while taking on a greater burden of unpaid care work, suffering domestic violence and unable to get basic health services for themselves and for their households.

Additionally, the role of women across different dimensions of sustainable development has been less reflected in the country including the undeniable fact that the creative use of women’s labour force in the economic development of the country is minimal. The political sphere of the country is, by and large, reserved for men alone, including the whimsical violations of their rights. Moreover, women are highly affected by environmental problems, and less emphasis is given to their participation in protecting the environment.

The COVID-19 pandemic has conspired to widen the gender inequality and more decisive actions are required to close the yawning gap. The pandemic has not only greatly revealed the deeply ingrained gender inequalities, it has also contributed to widening the gap, as women have also been on the front line and probably hit the hardest given the nature of their employment and their roles as majority caretakers. COVID-19’s massive disruption to employment opportunities for women, the health of their businesses, childcare, and school routines has pushed millions of women and their families to the financial brink.

A sustainable COVID-19 recovery cannot be a chance possibility without a strong gender emphasis, in all its dimensions and by all stakeholders. We all have an important role to play in adopting the needed gender lens to our activities and synergizing with every stakeholder in the project of not just supporting women but also empowering them in every way possible.

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, the need to recognise, promote and mainstream the role of women in dealing with the pandemic and in recovering their economies following the pandemic has become a national emergency. Putting women at the heart of Covid-19 recovery efforts must be a key part of any “building back better” initiative. This means promoting the quality of life of girls and women and empowering them towards national peace and sustainable economic development. If we fail to apply the gender lens in combating the COVID-19 pandemic, we will win the battle but lose the war.

Your Council meeting in the hospitable city of Uyo serves two purposes. The first is an opportunity to celebrate the many successes of our women and girls and the second is a platform to review the strategies to put gender at the centre of our activities. Without doubt, the current administration of His Excellency President Muhammadu Buhari has made great achievements in raising women’s economic empowerment, political participation, education, leadership and decision-making.

In spite of the above achievements, there is the need for us to continue to mainstream gender issues in all aspect of our economic, social and political endevours. We cannot achieve peace and sustainable development when we ignore or trample on the rights of fellow humans, especially women and the girl child in our society.

In spite of the impact of COVID-19 and dwindling revenue,we continued to expand government activities to cushion the effect of the pandemic and various economic activities with total estimated stimulus package by the Federal Government of Nigeria of N2.3 trillion.

These packages consist, to a large extent, of a combination of fiscal and monetary policies, sectoral interventions, and social programmes. The fiscal and monetary policies are supporting States, businesses, households and individuals through grants, tax relief, payroll support, tariff reductions, and direct support to the health sector. The real sector interventions are focusing on Mass Agriculture, Mass Housing, Public Works, Off-grid Solar Power Installations and support to small businesses. A common feature of these interventions is that they created large number of jobs, empowered farmers and entrepreneurs, used up to 100% of local materials, conserved foreign exchange and provided guaranteed offtake of outputs especially in Agriculture and Housing.

Also included in the plan are programmes targeted at women. This is to ensure that the response to the COVID-19 crisis does not intensify the crisis of gender inequality. The government also ensured that women are represented in all COVID-19 response planning and decision-making; driving transformative change for equality by addressing the care economy, paid and unpaid; and targeting women and girls in all efforts to address the socio-economic impact of COVID-19..

Some of the programmes were focused on Job creation schemes for Youth/Women Post COVID-19. These included the creation of one million jobs through:

•  Training in digital skills in partnership with private sector providers like Google, Microsoft, IBM and Cisco

•  Direct labour in a National Public Infrastructure Maintenance project

•  Provision of start-up capital and entrepreneurship skills for young Nigerians

The support for MSMEs specifically targeted women-owned businesses. The initiatives include:

•  Credit facilities that support working capital and expansion of existing production facilities

•  Credit remediation support e.g. tenor extension, loan restructuring, moratoriums etc.

•  Support for working capital facilities and term loans to finance expansion requests.

BOI provided tailored lending solutions across the value chains of these affected sectors i.e. to micro, small and medium enterprises as well as large corporates. The Bank also places utmost priority on the needs on Women led/women-owned businesses.

In addition to the Economic Sustainability Plan (ESP) that has a strong women component, the ongoing MTNDP 2021-2025 also has a thematic area dedicated to women which is women and gender equity Thematic Working Group. The key objective is that Nigeria aims to engender a society where the social, economic and political empowerment and rights of women, children, and other vulnerable groups are guaranteed and strengthened at all levels of governance for sustainable peace and development. To work towards this goal, Nigeria will strengthen the legislative and enforcement of existing gender policy framework by 2025 to promote deeper integration of women into economic and social development.

Traditionally, and culturally, women often undertake the majority of agricultural tasks in rural communities. Also, women often take on the duties of food and resource gathering, in addition to bearing and raising children. Out of our rural people who do not have access to an all-season roads, women take on almost three times as much of the transport burden than men. Realising the potential improvement to women’s lives that rural access enhancements can bring, His Excellency President Muhammadu Buhari has ensured the construction of 347km rural roads connecting approximately 266 communities nationwide. These Rural Road on agro corridors will facilitate transportation of agricultural products to markets, reduce post-harvest losses, encourage investment in value adding industries for processing and storage of farm products, lower products cost, increase employment, discourage rural-urban migration, reduce urban slums and improve security for all especially our women.

As this year marks yet another great milestone in the struggle for Gender Equality, it is pertinent to appreciate the Federal Government under the visionary leadership of His Excellency President Mohammadu Buhari GCFR for his commitments to seeing more Nigerian women in leadership positions both at national and international institutions, ensuring that access to credit would be further eased and more space created for women to participate in politics. This is in fulfillment of Mr. President’s promise to promote women’s inclusiveness in national development.

Furthermore, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and its attendant problems, including the spike in gender-based violence, this administration promptly responded by declaring zero tolerance to Gender-Based Violence in the country. Also the Social intervention programmes were further expanded to further address the needs of the most vulnerable women in our society.

Education of the girl child and the empowerment of mothers is fundamental to achieving an increase in the number of female leaders in the country and our objective of lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in ten years. Through the efforts of Mr. President and the Ministry of Women Affairs, the dignity of millions of women has been uplifted and the foundation for a better Nigeria is being laid.

The FMFBNP has been at the forefront of ensuring that gender is mainstreamed in all sectors in Nigeria using the instruments of cross-cutting plans and policies that ensures that individuals and households are protected from poverty and socio-economic shocks and enabling them to have enhanced livelihood through empowerment programmes thereby ensuring a life of dignity. The present administration is determined to continue working smart to ensure substantial reduction in poverty among Nigerians and ensuring that the rights of the vulnerable and the downtrodden in the society are protected.

While thanking the Minister of Women Affairs for the invitation to be part of your 2021 National Council meeting, I wish you all very fruitful deliberations.

I thank you all for your kind attention.