CH 7TH 2011MAR
 
For Release: MARCH 8TH 2011
  
Subject:         INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY
 
The International Women’s day is an annual event that celebrates the past, present and future political, social and economic contributions of women globally. This year’s event provides the Centre with another opportunity to demonstrate our support for women and to assess the degree of political participation of women throughout the West African region, with particular focus on Nigeria.
 
On a global level, no less than 55 countries have had female presidents, prime ministers or heads of state, including Rwanda and Liberia which are African Countries and Britain, with whom we share historical ties. Nigeria on the other hand, has had only one female governor (Dame Virginia Etiaba) but has never had a female President, or Vice President. Sarah Jubril, the only presidential candidate for the ruling party in this year’s election only had one vote in the PDP primaries.  
 
We find that despite the 35% minimum threshold provided for in the Nigerian Gender Policy, participation of women in governance is only about 7%. Statistics reveal that the present House of Representatives, composed of 360 members, has only 27 women, that the Upper House, has 109 members but only 9 are women and  that put together, all the 36 State Houses of Assembly including the FCT, only lay claim to 54 female members.  
 
We understand that there are unique challenges to the political participation of women some of which include, a lack of independent wealth and political skills, challenges of domestic work and child nurturing, exaggerated fears of political violence created by poor reporting which distort facts, patriarchal societal structures, abuse of religion, traditional practices and of course inadequate commitment by state institutions to curb political intimidation and corruption.
 
Sadly, some of the women who scale through these inhibitive hurdles appear not to have a wholesome grasp of what their assignments are, which has certainly not helped to endear either them or the female gender to the populace with regards to politics.
 
In the light of the foregoing, the Centre for Democracy and Development and the Global Call for Action against Poverty campaign seizes this opportunity to once again advocate for pre, during and post election capacity building for women right to the grassroots. It is our belief that to effectively achieve this, both private and public institutions must collaborate. Educational institutions must include mentoring by current female politicians in their curricula to increasingly educate children during their formative years on the lacunae within the political system owing to inadequate female participation and on how they can by their aspirations and subsequent qualitative input, bridge this gap. We also uses this opportunity to call for an increased allocation of aid by international actors for capacity-building, networking and exchange of country experiences and best-practices at all levels, as well as for the development of time-bound monitoring mechanisms. Pro- Gender Policy Advocacy and Implementation is also inalienable to increased qualitative participation of women in Nigerian politics. Laxity is no longer an option. The time to act is NOW.
 
 
Signed                                        
Jibrin Ibrahim (PhD)                                                            
Director
                                          

¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html

To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]
¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤