…say dialogue is the answer
By Theresa Moses
The Minister of Women Affairs, Dame Pauline Tallen has called on all aggrieved persons calling for breakup of our great country should rather pray or dialogue towards finding a lasting solution to the problems of insecurity across states.
Tallen stated this during the opening of the 5-Day Gender Based Violence Data Indicator Harmonization Workshop for the National Strategic Knowledge Management Technical Working Group on Tuesday in Lagos.
“The past few days have been very tense with rumours of conflicts and calls for breakup of our great country by aggrieved persons and others whose avenues for looting has been closed.
“I must say that what binds us together as a country in our 60 years of existence as an independent state is greater than what people can imagine. And Nigerian women say No! No!! No!!! to all those who are clamouring for breakup as we ask them to resort to dialogue towards finding a lasting solution to the problems of insecurity a cross states”.
On 13th April, 2021 during the launch of the National Strategic Knowledge Management Technical Working Group (SKMTWG) in Abuja, the Minister of Women Affairs promised to build the capacity of all stakeholders to “ensure that we all understand our different roles in this crucial journey aimed at ensuring that we have a one-stop reference point that would be collectively used at all levels by all partners, including the Development partners and Donor Community to access evidence-based information to facilitate planning and implementation of real time data on Gender- Based Violence”
According to Dame Pauline, she’s aware that there is a dearth of officers that are mindful of the need for Gender inclusivity in the Federal Ministry of Women Officers and other Ministries, Departments and Agencies, which makes many to question why emphasizing on gender disaggregated statistics or data in planning and programme. “I will use this opportunity to call on our partners to reach out to us to strengthen existing capacities in our system,” she said.
The Minister appealed to all that as producers or users of statistics, whether we are compiling labour market indicators, Health Statistics – Annual Health Report, Annual Education Report, Population Bulletins, Poverty (Living Standards/ Income and Expenditure) Survey, Preparing Statistical Report; SDG Report; Human Development Report: we must mainstream “gender”, so that we are able to paint the clear picture.
“I want to emphasize the focus on numbers to highlight the real figures that will be easily understood by all for strategic planning. For instance, if we say out of 80% of Nigerians living under poverty 20% are women, it might not make sense to the average user. But when you say out of 200 million Nigerians, 100 million are women and of this figure 90 million of them live below poverty line. His appeals quickly to all and this are what we have been able to achieve with the real time data coming out of the situation room”.
The National Strategic Knowledge Management Technical Working Group is made up of all the relevant Ministries, Department and Agencies, Development partners and other critical stakeholders who are involved in the production of data on Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV), this idea is aimed at deploying an analytical strategy to prove effective coordination and harmonization in the constructs of SGBV Data within the country.
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