Edo State Lauded for Gender Responsive Budgeting Efforts at High-Level Stakeholders’ Engagement

Edo State Lauded for Gender Responsive Budgeting Efforts at High-Level Stakeholders’ Engagement

By Adesuwa Louisa E.

Edo state commissioner for the Ministry of Social Development and Gender Issues, Mrs. Christabel Omon Ekwu, has asserted that, Edo State has made great strides in promoting gender equality, but recognize that true progress requires intentionality in their planning, resource allocation, and implementation processes.

Omon Ekwu made the statement in an event to institutionalising gender building for Inclusive Development with the theme:” Gender Responsive Budgeting-An Imperative for Edo state,” said the issue of gender equality is not just a women’s issue, but a development issue that affects us all.

She said,” As we gather here, we are reminded that the budgeting process is one of the most powerful tools we have to ensure that the needs and aspirations of both men and women are fairly addressed in our policies ang programs.

“This also aligns with the goal of our gender policy which is to build a just society devoid of discrimination, where the needs of women, men, girls, boys, and other vulnerable groups are equitably mainstreamed into all sectors of state development.

” Edo State has made great strides in promoting gender equality, but we recognize that true progress requires intentionality in our planning, resource allocation, and implementation processes.”

In her Goodwill remarks, the Commissioning Manager, Skills Development for Youth Employment, Britta Van Erckelen, said Edo State government is one of the first states in Nigeria that had adopted gender Inclusive.

Britta Van Erckelen, disclosed that recently GIZ-SKYE built the capacity of 200 women in Edo state and expressed readiness that they will continue to work with the Edo state government to enable them fulfill their target.

Britta Van Erckelen, said “, SKYE is a project programme that is implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).

” We focused on enhancement technical, vocation, education, training, empowerment and promotion of youths. So, gender Budgeting has an important aspect to consider gender inclusive and technical vocational education and the opportunities in the labour market.

” This is the aspect we are coming from. There are very responsive with the state considering gender budgeting. We the external organization can only support the stakeholders.

“The ownership is with the government. But, in our activities and capacity development, we would support women to enhance their roles, and further inclusion into the society.”

When asked if Edo State is meeting up to her target, she posited” This is a great step and Edo State is one of the few state that is considering gender responsive budgeting. We will continue our dialogue with the governments and other partners that are here today.

” We also understand that the civil society organizations are very interested in supporting this process, and I am very confident that by taking the step institutionalizing gender mainstreaming through gender responsive budgeting our target would be meant.”

She further stressed,” Again, following the request of the Governor, concrete examples of these efforts include; the International Women’s Day celebration earlier this year, where 200 women-led MSMEs, comprising victims of gender based violence (GBV) and disadvantaged women in rural areas, received capacity development training.

“These women were equipped with financial and digital Iiteracy skills to support the growth and development of their businesses.

“A three-day capacity development workshop was organized for the Edo State Gender Technical Working Group, where 40 gender focal persons from key Ministries, Departments and Agencies were trained to champion gender inclusivity within their respective sectors.

” To ensure inclusivity in Education, we supported the Edo state Ministry of Education in training over 28 master trainers selected from the five Technical Colleges.

” Usen Polytechnic and College of Education on Gender and Disability Inclusion in TVET, and plans are on the way to tram job counsellors m the different job centres on gender-sensitive career counselling to mention but a few,” Erckelen added.

Given her keynote presentation, the Programme Component Manager, Gender and Inclusion, GIZ- Skills Development for Youth Employment (SKYE), Helen Ogonna Igboka , listed some of the solutions of gender responsive budgeting such as; building the capacity of people working in the government.

She said the essence of building their capacity is to ensure they fully understand and make sure they effectively plan with gender consideration in mind.

Igboka said there is the need for more sensitization of financial officers working in government establishment, the academie and all relevant stakeholders within the process of gender responsive budgeting.

She therefore stated some of the Challenges of gender responsive budgeting as lack of data, govt lack of actions to implement certain policies, insufficient CSOs to monitor gender responsive planning of budgeting, and many others.

She said they have able to overcome the problems of short term planning and commitment, that they want to ensure they enshrined this process within the long term planning of the government.

Igboka said if they have able to enshrined the 30 years plans, they will be assured that they have able to overcome challenge of gender responsive budgeting.

Given an objective summit of the occasion, the Commissioner, Ministry of Budget, Planning and Economic Development, Mr. Osilama Okuofu, said the key objectives of the summit are institutionalizing gender inclusive planning.

The commissioner who was represented by the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry, Mr. Efe Iserhienrhien, said their collaboration with to the Ministry of Social Development and Gender Issues is vital in translating the Edo State gender policy into actionable budgetary frameworks that consider everyone’s needs including the needs of vulnerable groups, particularly women and children.