Women Will Be Our First Priority In Giving Stimulus Packages- Finance Minister

The Minister of Finance Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, said Nigeria is still far from achieving the goal of gender equality in leadership roles, however plans are ongoing to design government fiscal interventions to favour more women.

Ahmed said this on Monday during a presentation at the ‘2021 International Women’s Day Commemoration: National Policy Dialogue.”

She said, “The government is scaling up existing and developing new interventions at the intersection of gender equality and fiscal policy/public financial management.”

The Finance Minister said women must be given the opportunities and tools with which to be socially, financially, and economically empowered.

Ahmed noted that to make the critical investments necessary to close the gender gap and secure the economic empowerment of women and girls, the country must address the longstanding challenge of domestic revenue mobilisation.

“We are therefore working to develop the second phase of the Strategic Revenue Generation Initiatives,” said the finance boss.

She said the Ministry was planning a more gender responsive budgeting, adding that it would assess gender responsiveness of key fiscal interventions in order to improve the safety, livelihoods, and economic status of women and girls.

Ahmed said, “We are also working to ensure that our public financial management processes are more gender-sensitive, and that credible disaggregated data is available. Such a focus will yield sustainable and scalable change.”

The Minister also decried that despite the progress made, the country is still far from achieving equality for the female gender.

“We must come together to achieve the empowerment and equitable representation of women in leadership and decision-making roles across all sectors, particularly in roles relating to governance and policy-making,” she added.

She also made a case for the women and girls in their respective homes, schools, communities, and places of work.

“We must stop gender-based violence, and end the so-called “shadow pandemic” once and for all,” Ahmed said.