Deborah Onyofufeke, Abuja
Women Affairs Commissioners from the 36 states of the Federation and the FCT, have approached the United Nations Development Programme, UNDP, to seek its support in addressing the challenges being faced by women and girls in their various states.
The Dean, Commissioner of Women Affairs in Nigeria, Dr Ini Adiakpan, in her address, stated that with the population in Nigeria, interventions, capacity building and broad partnership with relevant organisations will be required to address the issues on ground.
Dr Adiakpan, stated this yesterday at a high level dialogue on advancing programmes for women and girls in Nigeria, held at the United Nations House, Abuja.
Dr Adiakpan, said as government officials in charge of women and girls, they have the mandate to initiate, plan and implement development programmes on women, children, persons with disabilities, the aged, vulnerable persons etc.
She appealed to UNDP and other UN agencies for their support towards achieving social interventions and capacity building for women.
She said “ this task is enormous if you look at the population of women and children in the country. We cannot do it alone, we need partnership.
“By so doing, we mainstream issues concerning women and the girl child in all we do in our various Ministries.
“Bottom line of our issues is funding and capacity building for us the drivers”. Dr Adiakpan who is also the Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Welfare, Akwa Ibom state, said.
She stressed the need for the UNDP to help in fast tracking development issues affecting women and girls in Nigeria through the various agencies of the United Nations.
She also requested the help of the UNDP in areas of women empowerment programmes, promoting gender equality, capacity building, social welfare programmes, helping in research/assessment of women development issues, child trafficking, gender based violence, child security and labour, education, nutrition, agriculture and provision of food banks amongst others.
“We need UNDP partnership and intervention in the stated areas. For instance, when we talk about nutrition, we talk about a lot of malnourished children and we need programmes to support children, promote healthy growth and development of pregnant women.
“We have a very serious issue of street children, it’s alarming and very disturbing. If there is no intervention, these out of school children, who are loitering on the streets will grow into people of questionable characters, which in turn will lead to criminalities, banditry, kidnapping etc.
“If we don’t start the intervention now, we will lose our children to criminalities and other social vices that are inimical to the overall wellbeing, socio-economic growth and development of the country, the Dean, Commissioners of Women Affairs stated.
Meanwhile, speaking earlier, the UNDP Resident Representative, Mrs Elsie Attafuah, stressed that the UNDP is ready to partner with the state Commissioners to provide solutions to the challenges faced by women and girls in the country.
She commended the Commissioners for the long standing relationship between their various Ministries and the UN agencies.
Attafuah said UNDP has been supporting the government and people of Nigeria in addressing development challenges, through strengthening and building institutions that promote inclusive sustainable development and democratic governance.
“We are in a world that is facing numerous crisis, wars, impact of climate change etc, yet we have a world that has great opportunities and possibilities, with innovative young men and women.
“It will take women to push the course of development in Africa. It is possible. Thus continent has everything it takes to prosper and more so a country like Nigeria yet our people still wallow in poverty. We must establish how we can turn things around.
“We need to encourage and partner with women with fire in their bellies to make things work and to take the cause of gender based development issues serious.
“As UNDP and by extension the United Nations family, we are doing a lot in the area of fender equality, women empowerment and so on. All we see doing is to put our efforts together with you under the leadership of President Bola Tinubu in the spirit of the Renewed hope agenda ”, Mrs Attafuah said.
