The Nigerian Women Trust Fund (NWTF) shared their story, successes and expectations with PLACBEAM.
That Nigeria is a patriarchal society with a glaring tradition of gender imbalance has never been in debate. Even a cursory look reveals that there are fewer women in politics, in governance and other positions of power relative to men. The problem was always what could be done, and how could it be done, to redress this imbalance.
An attempt by a group of women to find answers to these questions led to the establishment of the Nigerian Women Trust Fund in 2011. This was brought about through an unusual, but exemplary, collaboration between civil society and the government toward mobilizing institutional, technical, and financial resources necessary to accomplish the target objectives.
These centred on supporting and increasing the participation of women in politics, reducing the widening gap between their paltry representation in both elective offices and political appointments and devising strategies to boost their involvement in governance at all levels.
A recent study by the International Monetary Fund concluded that “if Nigeria reduced gender inequality both in the labour market and in political representation” while “improving health outcomes for women, the economy could grow on average by as much as 1.25 percentage points more.”
The NWTF appears poised to lead Nigeria in this direction. The organization has outlined thematic areas for coverage, namely: fundraising and granting; democracy, leadership, and governance; research and communications; gender advocacy; institutional effectiveness and efficiency. In any of its areas of engagement, the aim is to serve as facilitators of equitable access and sustainable participation of women across all levels of governance.
The overarching Goal of NWTF is to institutionalize access to resources for women towards a balanced representation in leadership and governance in Nigeria.
Barriers to participation currently experienced by women include violence, negative interpretation of religious texts and discriminatory cultural practices, among others. NWTF seeks to provide women with the strategies and resources to pursue and attain their aspirations. In essence, it wants to ensure there’s a steady pipeline of women who are qualified and willing to take up leadership roles in politics and governance, while creating a safe space where all women can aspire to achieve their full potential as human beings.
Impactful projects and success stories
NWTF has in its more than a decade of work devised programmes and actions toward achieving the ends it set for itself. These have included mentorships, training and workshops, litigation, and special interventions such as the Gender and Election Watch programme and the profiling of women achievers to serve as a mentorship guide to young women aspiring to attain leadership role in the society.
Mentorship
More than 3,000 young women have been provided mentorship through training and workshops where they’re sensitized about gender imbalance in the society and encouraged to challenge patriarchal traditions and other barriers to women emerging in leadership.
Some of the beneficiaries of these trainings have gone on to emerge as councilors and supervisory councilors in some local government councils. Others have been appointed into positions such as special advisers, while others have become aspirants for leadership positions in their communities. There are currently more than 4,000 volunteers of NWTF spread across Nigeria’s 36 states.
Profiling of women achievers
Closely linked to the mentorship and sensitization roles is the profiling of outstanding women holding leadership positions through the various strata of the society through a weekly newsletter. It’s intended as a mentorship guide for young people.
Gender and Election Watch programme
This is a response to inadequate women focused election observation report and analysis for the female gender. Launched in 2018, the Gender and Election Watch (GEW) aims to observe elections for the purpose of noting issues such as the scale of gender imbalance, including the participation of women at all levels in comparison to men. This is expected to prove a source of critical data that would help better understanding of the problem and ultimately lead to the appropriate solutions.
Mufuliat Fijabi, CEO of NWTF, Photo Credit: NWTF
Research and Documentation
This dovetails into the considerable work the organization is putting into research and publications as a means of ensuring that actions and decisions affecting women are guided by knowledge. NWTF has more than 20 publications on its thematic areas of interest usually sent to relevant government institutions, private sector leaders, donor agencies and the general public.
Inclusive Governance
As part of its advocacy role on inclusive governance, the NWTF in 2020 filed a suit at the Federal High Court in Abuja seeking a clarification of the position of the constitution on the inclusion of women in democratic governance. The case is just getting underway, but whatever may be its outcome, it would have served to put to the front burner the issue of gender imbalance in politics and governance in Nigeria.
Supporting Like Minded Organisations Through Sub Grants
NWTF has built the capacity of one hundred and twelve (112) Community Based Organisations, Faith Based Organisations and Women’s Groups on Organisational development in Adamawa, Anambra, Kaduna, Oyo, Rivers, and Plateau states. This is in line with NWTF’s objective to transparently provide women with resources for leadership and governance as well as enhancing institutional effectiveness for transformation and sustainability. NWTF is in turn working towards sub-granting to women’s right organizations.
Support To Political Parties – Gender Road Maps and Work plans for National Woman Leaders
NWTF in her bid to ensuring that the political environment is conducive for women has undertaken advocacy visits to major political parties. Following from the engagements with political party leadership, NWTF worked with the political party’s’ leadership to develop a gender road map for the 18 registered political parties. Furthermore, NWTF also worked with the National Woman Leaders of the 18 Political Parties to develop a gender work plan and built their capacity on gender mainstreaming within parties, mentorship of young women politicians, and mobilizing support for women within political parties for effective engagement in their political parties. Most critical for NWTF was to engage with the women leaders in ensuring an increase in the rate of women’s participation in politics and the emergence of more women in elective and appointive positions.
Challenges
Like many other civil society organisations (CSOs), NWTF thinks financial resources are not sustainable and totally dependent on the priorities of funders and the goodwill of contributors. There is also difficulty in predicting the amount of money that will be donated in each funding cycle. This sometimes, leads to constraints in forecasting sustainable project interventions. Lack of independent project investments as means to generate and secure financial resources for NWTF is also identified a challenge.
Looking Ahead
NWTF seeks to bring into fruition one of its thematic areas which is grant making to fundraise and provide support to like-minded organizations, provide young women and older women with technical support for leadership and decision-making positions irrespective of their political inclination and attain a gender- representation of women in leadership and decision-making fields of the country where all forms of subjugation and discrimination is shunned.