6th December, 2016
The UN Development Programme (UNDP) has launched Africa Human Development Report 2016 to accelerate gender equality and women’s empowerment in the continent.
The report was jointly launched on Tuesday by Abdoulaye Mar Dieye, UN Assistant Secretary General and UNDP Africa Director and some Federal Government officials at the ongoing 3-day African Economic Conference in Abuja.
Dieye said that the issue of women empowerment started with Beijing Declaration, noting that a lot of progress had been recorded since then.
“ We have seen progress on gender equality and women’s empowerment; it is moving on the high rise trend since Beijing.
“We want to credit the rise to the Millennium Declarations because when you look at Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 5 – Improve maternal health- It has the highest total multiplier effect.
“Countries that have been investing on MDGs 5 have seen the political and economic impact on women,’’ he said.
The UN chief said that two events also gave emphasis on promoting gender equality in the continent.
“You will remember in 2013 when our leaders agreed on the Maputo declaration protocol, which entails gender equality and women empowerment.
“The second was July 2014 in Addis Ababa when leaders made a solemn declaration on gender equality and women empowerment.
“That gave an impetus but we (UNDP) looked at progress made on the gender equality on political and economic side and it is not on the high speed.’’
Dieye said that the recommendations in the report proposed an Agenda for Action to accelerate gender equality and women’s empowerment.
He said some actors had been pulling the continent down to achieve speed in gender equality and women empowerment.
The official listed some of the issues which impede gender equality as discriminatory health and education practices, harmful social norms and cultural barriers, among others.
Earlier, Mr Edward Kollan, UNDP Resident Representative in Nigeria said that women had been facing some challenges including lack of access to land.
Kollan said they were always faced with hunger in the miss of abundance of food because they were not empowered to have access to land.
According to him, 48 per cent of Nigerian women are economically active.
“To advanced women development, we need to get women not to only participate actively in productive activities but also to get fair reward for their labor.
“The cost of inaction can be big as highlighted in the UNDP’s Human Development Report for Nigeria earlier launched in May.
“We drew attention to the very high gender inequality index which was estimated at 0.0579 for Nigeria.
“There is with wide national disparity which varies from 0.0349 in Ondo State to 0.0832 in Sokoto State.’’
He said there was high potential loss as a result of gender inequality in the country.
In her presentation on the African Human Development, UNDP’s Strategic Advisory, Regional Bureau for Africa, Ms Angela Lusigi gave a breakdown of the report in four thematic areas.
Lusigi said the areas included supporting the adoption of legal reforms to advance women’s empowerment and supporting national capacities to promote women in decision making
“ Others areas were to support women to gain ownership and management of economic and support capacity to implement multi-sectoral approaches to mitigate the impacts of discrimination against women,’’ She said.
Also speaking, Mrs Fatima Mede, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Budget and National Planning said empowering women would boost a nation’s economy.
Mede, represented by Mr Tunde Lawal, a Director in the ministry said experience had shown that working with women would accelerate development.
“Any national that wants to develop must recognize women.
“The Federal Government recognizes the challenges on empowering women and it is working hard to address them.
“The ministry will take the key recommendations in the report and fashion them into the nation’s development plan,’’ she said.