Baseline Gender Assessment and Institutional Gender Mainstreaming

The gender component of our programs aims to facilitate pro-poor governance mechanisms in order to  unleash the creative ability of women to participate fully in development activities as well as standing on their feet.

Gender Equity in Water Governance Institutions     

This program aims to mobilize a network/coalition of NGOs and civil societies in Nigeria to develop a guideline for the mainstreaming of gender into Nigeria’s water sector. It is germane to note that Nigeria has a vast array of policy frameworks that inform water resources use and management, however these policies implicate a host of institutions and levels of governments without due recognition of gender equity or attempts to bring coherence to both policies and legislative frameworks along gender equity lines. 

Our proposed programme therefore provides a framework for women to be involved in decision making at both the institutional and local levels. It encourages devising more poverty reduction strategy and programmes to take into account the lives of poor and vulnerable women and men alike.

As a sector gender strategy, our programme aims at developing empowering approaches that will enhance gender equity, participation, and access and control of resources leading to poverty alleviation for both men and women. It aims at providing stakeholders in the water and sanitation sectors with operational guidelines on how gender principles are to be mainstreamed within the sector. 

Our programme derives inspiration from a 2005 gender based baseline survey by the Water for African Cities II (WAC II) of the UNHABITAT in Nigeria which we facilitated in Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria in 2005.

Our program retains the salient characteristics of gender assessments, policy reviews, gender dialogue, staging of workshops, media publications, adverts, promotional/motivational jingles, interviews, conference presentations, meetings and lobbying of parliamentarians, politicians and government personalities in a most proactive and practical manner with a view at addressing all gender and water policy inconsistencies within. Funds are still being mobilized for this initiative.