Abimbola Abatta
A Gender Consultant, Mrs Grace Ahmadu, has stressed that gender mainstreaming is a strategy to improve the quality of public policies, programmes and projects while ensuring a more efficient allocation of resources.
She equally urged women not to relent in the fight for gender equality and social inclusion to make their impact felt in the political space.
She stated this, on Thursday, at a three-day training on “Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI)” organised by Centre for Transparency Advocacy (CTA) in Abuja.
Ahmadu who maintained that women-related issues had been on the front burner of Nigeria’s politics, said “Gender mainstreaming is a strategy to improve the quality of public policies, programmes and projects, ensuring a more efficient allocation of resources.
“Better results mean increased well-being for both women and men, and the creation of a more socially just and sustainable society.”
According to her, the training was aimed at educating Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) on how to better mainstream gender and social inclusion.
In her words, “The CTA is implementing a project on cultural values of the people living in the FCT with emphasis on women, girls and persons with disabilities.
“The idea is supporting CTA to better mainstream GESI to work toward reducing gender inequalities between women and men, girls and boys.
“We can achieve that through ensuring that gender is effectively mainstreamed at the planning stage; at the beginning of a project.
“Gender mainstreaming should not be an afterthought in the course of implementation of projects.
“The idea is, right at the project inception, you have these people at the back of your mind.”
On women-related bills rejected by the National Assembly, the consultant said that “we just need to keep pushing.
“This pushing dates back to years. You don’t stop, you keep pushing. I have not seen this kind of aggressiveness women organisation are putting as a result of the rejection. It is a welcome development,” she said.