By Nkechi Eze
Nigeria’s Minister of Women Affairs, Hajiya Imaan Sulaiman Ibrahim, has announced that the federal government, led by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is implementing groundbreaking reforms to promote women’s empowerment and equality.
She disclosed this at the ongoing high level strategic joint event for gender equality in New York, United State, with the theme: Achieving Scale on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment through Field Pivoting: Localizing the Global Agenda.
In a statement signed Thursday and made available to journalists by her Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Jonathan Eze, the minister stated that the federal government has an ambition to empower 10 million women over the next three years to boost their productivity and contribution to the achievement of the one (1) trillion dollars economy target the administration has set.
She added that one of the ministry’s interventions is the Nigeria for Women Project (NFWP), which has already reached over four hundred and fifty thousand (450,000) women, “and we are now scaling it up to directly reach 4.5 million women through access to finance, skills development, and cooperative-based interventions, she added.
“This is what we refer to when we speak of scale. We are also working with partners to strengthen women’s participation in the blue economy, green economy, extractive industry, and creative sectors amongst others.”
Sulaiman-Ibrahim added that one of the critical lessons from the past decades is that small-scale interventions cannot drive systemic change, noting that scaling gender equality requires us to move from pilot projects to large-scale interventions that reach millions.
The minister called on governments, donors, and multilateral institutions to prioritize funding for localized gender equality programs that work within community structures.
“With the global gender financing shortfall, we must unlock new sources of capital, including impact investing, blended finance, and social bonds for gender equality. We must also scale up digital inclusion for women to ensure that no woman is left behind in the digital economy.”
The statement reads in parts: “There comes a time in every movement when we must ask ourselves: Are we moving fast enough? Are we reaching far enough? Are we transforming lives at the scale required to make gender equality a reality?
“My colleagues in government will tell you my views about Pilot projects and small-scale projects. I have been accused of being too ambitious in my programming, but I firmly believe that ambition is exactly what is required if we are to achieve real, lasting change. I am therefore excited that today’s conversation is not just the usual dialogue on women’s empowerment.
“I am happy it is about breaking the cycle of small wins and fragmented interventions to achieve systemic, large-scale transformation.
For decades, we have laid out ambitious global and regional frameworks and made commitments; from the Beijing Platform for Action to CEDAW, from Agenda 2063 to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
“However, the question before us today is: how do we make these commitments real for the woman in the Mada in Nasarawa State of Nigeria, the girl in a conflict zone in the Upper Nile area of South Sudan, or the female entrepreneur struggling to access finance in the Mbare Township of Zimbabwe?
“Your Excellencies and Distinguished Delegates, the time has come to pivot our strategies, to move from high-level discourse to localized, community-driven solutions that accelerate scale and impact. COVID-19 reversed some gains achieved in the last decades; we must therefore act now with urgency.” She said.
Dignitaries in attendance includes former Minister of Women Affairs, Dame Paulen Tallen, wives of Governors of Edo State, Federal Capital Territory, Imo, Kebbi, Nasarawa, Zamfara, Ogun and other eminent personalities.
