Stakeholders in Kano State have called for a more coordinated and inclusive approach to women’s economic empowerment, with emphasis on reaching women in rural communities and addressing the social and gender barriers limiting their participation in development.
The call was made at a multi-stakeholder forum on integrated women’s programming in Kano, which brought together government agencies, civil society organisations and other stakeholders to discuss strategies for improving interventions targeting women.
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Speaking on the focus of the engagement, Zuwaira Isa of the Ministry for Rural and Community Development said the meeting was aimed at improving communication with women in rural areas and ensuring they are reached with relevant information and support.
She said, “The focus of this meeting is the multidimensional programme for women in the rural areas. We want to know how to communicate with the rural people that are down there at the bottom level of the rural areas.”
Isa added that the ultimate goal was to empower rural women to understand how to address challenges affecting them and communicate their needs to government.
“We are hoping and expecting that all the rural women should be empowered. We are now in a digital era, so they should know how to help themselves when they have a problem and how they can reach the government so that the government will know their problem and how to tackle that problem,” she said.
Executive Director of a health initiative, Suleyman Ahmad, said the engagement provided an opportunity for government agencies and civil society organisations to develop programmes that better support women’s economic development.
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“Our expectation is that at the end of the session, we can achieve some kinds of programmes that will be supporting the women,” Ahmad said.
He stressed the need to involve community stakeholders in designing interventions, rather than imposing programmes on communities.
“Let us have the voices of the community, let us know what their issues are and align the issues to our activities so that the economic development of the women will be strategised and improved,” he said.
For Rahinatu Mohamed, State Coordinator of Baobab for Women’s Human Rights, the focus should also be on addressing gender bias and deeply rooted social norms that affect women’s economic opportunities.
“We are looking at it through different pathways, including education and skills development, governance and employment,” she said.
Meanwhile, Rukayyah Ahmed of Bridge Connect Africa said the forum was aimed at developing a practical toolkit for organisations and government institutions working on women’s economic empowerment.
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“We are trying to develop a toolkit that other institutions will use on women’s economic empowerment programming,” Ahmed said.
She added that the toolkit would draw from lessons and insights from previous programmes to guide government, NGOs and other stakeholders on how best to implement women-focused interventions in Kano State.
