**As NAWOJ President Urges Women to participate in politics

At least 1 million Nigerian women and girls in the Federal Capital Territory have benefitted from Women’s Voice and Leadership (WVL) Project, anchored by ActionAid Nigeria.

The Phase 1 of the five- year project funded by Global Affairs Canada which closed-out recently was projected to tackle the barriers to gender equality and supporting the empowerment of women and girls through provision of financial and technical resources to local feminist/women’s rights organisations in Nigeria. 

The intervention was designed to respond to the challenges faced by these organisations in their efforts to eliminate discrimination and rights violations in policy and legislation and the provision of services, as well as harmful social beliefs and practices.

Addressing stakeholders at the close out ceremony recently in Abuja, ActionAid women Rights Program Manager Niri Goyit indicated that the Project benefited 1, 066, 008 of women and girls overall in FCT

Breaking it down into interventions and thematic areas in the FCT, she indicated that 300, 008 women benefited in Gender Based Violence/Violence against women and Girls while 323, 975 benefited in the area of

Women economic Empowerment programmes and 442, 025 benefited in the area of Women’s political participation and Leaderahip.

She listed the Academic Institutions that adopted and domesticated Gender Policy though the WVL project to include, University of Abuja, Michael and Cecilia Ibru University, Delta State University, University of Benin and
Nasarawa state University.
“This project has made a lot of impact.  We’ve seen lots of impact across the country.
“So we’ve seen in depth capacity. You know, the local women’s rights organizations, they improve their programming skills. 
“We have also seen that because of the increase in capacity, now they are able to apply for grants from other donors. 
Some of the organizations we started with here have never accessed any donor funding, but because of the project and the trainings that they were given on the project, the funding, the project management skills they got through implementation. 
“A lot of them now have three, four, five fundings from big donors like UN Women, USAID and all that. So for us, that is one key achievement.
“And of course, we also have a knowledge management platform which is a feminist hub where we upload a lot of reports a lot of researches.
“The project conducted lots of researches. So for women to conduct advocacy they have to do researches and the project partners conducted a number of them which they used to influence policies and the feminist hub alone had about 129 views across the globe. 
“So organizations that were not on WVL, actually benefited from the feminist hop and view capacity. Then these organizations were also able to upload their own reports, research, network. 
“If you’re looking for a female mentor, you could access on the feminist hub. Even cases of GBV were reported on feminist hub and channelled to organizations like FIDA and Queens that action issues of gender-based violence.”
She indicated that through increased programming, depth of programming, visibility a lot of organizations, that were not known in their state, have been well known by their state government because of this project
“They provide technical support on women issues to their state government at the state level. And, you know, they consult for different organizations when it comes to issues of women and girls. 

“And so far the project has reached 7 million Nigerian women and girls indirectly and directly.”
“In terms of policies, this project supported women’s rights organizations to influence 47 policies. Most of those policies were influenced by the national networks
“The VAP law in all the implementing states have been passed. The child’s rights law, the national gender policy, our project partners were part of the people that supported that.”
The Northern Coordinator , Women’s Voice and Leadership Project, Noro Bature- Bishams said the initiative has impacted on countless number of women, girls and persons with disability, a feat she said would be sustained
The Country Director of one of Action Aid Nigeria, Mr. Andrew Mamedu expressed joy that the project has touched over one million lives in the federal capital terrritory.

Other organisations that participated in the project included the International Federation of Women Lawyers, FIDA Nigeria, Christian Women for Excellence and Empowerment in Nigerian Society, League of Women Voters, 100 Women Lobby , Advocacy for Women with Disabilities, Women in Politics Forum and Small Scale Women Farmers, Nigeria            
Meanwhile, the President of the Natinal Association of Women Journalists, (NAWOJ) Aisha Ibrahim used the event to urge women to rise up and participate more in politics to improve the living conditions of the female gender across the country
The NAWOJ President who spoke with journalists during the event said she has prioritized women participation in politics and is using the forthcoming Edo and Ondo governorship polls as focal