Mrs Lydia Shehu, Executive Director, Rescue Initiative for Sustainable Development (RISD), has said that no meaningful development was possible without women’s participation in decision making in any society.

Shehu stated this in an interview in Bauchi, on Tuesday, on the margins of a one-day dialogue with stakeholders on masculinity norms, organised by International Alert.

The director, who was at the event as a consultant for International Alert, lamented that whilst women accounted for almost half of the population of many countries, they were often neglected or marginalised.

She added that any government that wanted its interventions to be responsive to the wishes and interest of the people, most take cognisance of the interest of women.

“The whole programme centred around social inclusion, hindrances to participation of women in decision making.

“It is geared towards creating awareness in the area of the potentials that women have. Oftentimes, women have numerical strength, they are almost half of the population of almost every country and it’s no exception in Bauchi state.

“However, they are often neglected and marginalised when it comes to active participation in the decision making process and there could never be good development without harnessing the potentials, the ability, capability of a large chunk of a population.

“If you want your interventions to be responsive to the wishes and interest of the people, then women interest and opinion matter,” she said.

Shehu further explained that social inclusion was not only talking about women, but also bringing everybody to the forefront, especially as Nigeria belonged to all of its citizenry.

She said “We are all stakeholders, we are all important in the affairs of our country.

“So, social inclusion means every person, every individual, every family, every community has a say in the affairs of their local governments or states.

“Social inclusion is particularly concerned with those that are marginalised like the women and other groups like the Youths.

”Even though the federal government had enacted a law on “Not too young to run”, but we also need the youths to be integrated in all spheres of decision making.

“Also, there are persons with disabilities, the cripple, the blind, the deaf and dumb. They are also part of the society and even the drug addicts and the homeless.

“Society cannot move positively when one single individual is neglected. What we are trying to say in this programme is that every stakeholder should ensure that social Inclusion is an agenda that should bring everybody to the decision table, so that concrete decisions can be taken that affect the lives of these people”.

She urged the state government, as well as the private sector, to ensure that the voices of women were heard if they wanted to have impactful interventions on the people of the state.

Also speaking, Mrs Celina Jakawa from a Bauchi based Non-Governmental Organisation, Attah Sisters Helping Hands (ASHH) foundation, said women’s political participation was a fundamental prerequisite for gender equality and genuine democracy.

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She added that it facilitated women’s direct engagement in public decision-making and was also a means of ensuring better accountability by women.

Some of the participants at the event included religious and traditional leaders, persons with disabilities, NGOs and different women’s groups.