From: Saghir el Mohammed, Women Affairs, Abuja
Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Hajiya Zainab Maina, has said that despite lack of access to productive resources and coupled with other constraints facing the Nigerian women, they still contribute about 70 per cent to the economic growth of the country.
Maina, who disclosed this when she received the Association of Nigerian Business Network (ANWBN) in her office on Thursday, lamented that “women in the urban area lack access to bank loans and other facilities which are needed for production while for those in the rural areas, it means land for production, absence of modern methods of processing of farm produce and non-availability of extension services, among others.”
She regretted that established restrictive practices and constraints have not allowed the Nigerian women to take advantage of their numbers and position in order to significantly influence the decision making processes that will change their unfavorable position.
“As a result, the potential of half of the Nigerian population remains unexplored and the scope of labour, energy and human resources available for national development is restricted,” she stated.
The minister noted that for the present condition of the Nigerian women to change more positively, deliberate efforts must be made to ensure that women have access to political and economic power at higher levels, adding that, “one way of doing this is to empower women both economically and educationally.”
Maina said that empowering women to participate fully in economic life across all sectors and through all levels of economic activity was essential for building strong economies, establishing more stable and just societies, achieving internationally agreed goals for development, sustainability and human rights, as well as improving quality of life for women.
She acknowledged that achieving women’s economic empowerment requires sound public policies; a holistic approach and long-term commitment and gender-specific perspectives must be integrated at the design stage of policy and programming.
“That was why our Transformational President introduced gender budgeting in the business of government. He earmarked the sum of over N3Billion for the commencement of gender-focused programming and project execution in five pilot ministries that included Agriculture, Health, Water Resources, Works and Communication Technology.
“The federal government is also currently building and commissioning a total of 77 Women Skills Acquisition Centres across the country, to train women on various economic ventures at the grassroots.
“This is in addition to various economic window for women farmers, Small and Medium scale entrepreneurs, some of them through the Central Bank of Nigeria, Bank of Industries, and that of Agriculture,” she disclosed.
Earlier, the national coordinator of ANWBN, Mrs. Titilola Adisa, said they were in the Ministry to seek partnership in increasing access to credit facilities among Micro and Small Scale Women Enterprises in line with Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion.
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