FG sets aside N3bn to enhance women’s lives

The Federal Government has set aside N3 billion for Ministries,
Departments and Agencies (MDAs) with good programmes for
girls and women development in Nigeria.
The additional fund, according to the Coordinating Minister for
the Economy and Minister for Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-
Iweala, would be an incentive for the MDAs to design helpful
programmes for women.
Speaking during the signing of a Memorandum of
Understanding (MoU) with Procter and Gamble, Nigeria, on the
Growing Girls and Women In Nigeria (G-WIN), the Minister
said it was at the instance of President Goodluck Jonathan
that the project was captured in the budget.
“It was him with whom we discussed the idea that the budget
could be used as a more powerful instrument to do more for
girls and women because when you empower a girl, you
empower a nation. Investing in women is smart economics.
Investing in girls is smarter economics because you catch
them early. So, it was a very result-oriented thing.
If in your ministry, you have a programme for girls and women,
if you are willing to go even further for more results for them,
you will get some incentive through additional budgetary
resources. And the president in the 2014 and 2013 budget,
supported us to make provisions for about N3 billion to
experiment with this approach. We have never tried it before
and we did not know that other countries have ever tried it.
“It looks like this was one of the first attempts. So, that is
how G-WIN started and we had the Ministry of Women Affairs
was very delighted to work with this and be a part of it and
so were other MDAs that volunteered, which include the
Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Communication
Technology, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Works, the
Ministry of Water Resources.
They all came forward and said, we want to achieve more and
better results for Nigerian women. We will want to be part of
this programme and benefit from these resources. We got the
Ministry of Women Affairs and Finance to sign an MoU with
all these agencies to kick off the programme, with women
affairs helping us monitor the implementation.
“I must commend also my senior adviser who really pushed
for this programme to be implemented and all the Ministry of
Finance staff who worked on it. So, it is just a life of its own.
I just want to mention some of the results, which the
president was absolutely delighted that we set concrete goals
and we achieved concrete results,” she said.
Already, she said the ministries had carried out a number of
projects to enhance the employability of the women in various
areas such as in agriculture, health and communications.
“Let me mention a few. In agriculture, for instance, 1,120
women have been equipped with agriculture skills. This is in
addition to whatever the Ministry of Agriculture was already
planning for women and more women have been registered to
participate in the agricultural Growth Enhancement Scheme
(GES) for e-wallet. So, they can now get their inputs, vouchers
for their fertilizers, their seeds and so on directly and we
challenge them and 2.5 million women are now on the
programme. And this is something to be proud of.
“The Ministry of Communications Technology has been
instrumental because with their platforms we have been able
to achieve some of these things in agriculture and health. But
in addition, they themselves have been trying to train 2,285
young women and empowered them with the relevant skills in
communications technology to enhance their employability.
And so this is something very tangible.
“The Ministry of Health has done something, which is
absolutely so touchy. We have a problem with VVF in this
country and with their additional resources they were able to
get additional 2,362 women whose dignity has been restored
through repairs and who have been able to resume their lives.
We know it is not perfect. The numbers are still large but
again we have been able to deliver more results than we
would have through this programme,” she said.
The Managing Director of Procter and Gamble (P&G) Nigeria,
George Nassar, expressed his company’s desire to leverage
G-WIN to propagate their global strategy of touching and
improving lives in general and empowering women and girls to
live their lives to the fullest.