HipCity on August 14th, 2024, attended a validation meeting hosted by the Dorothy Njemanze Foundation for the compendium on inclusive leadership in Nigeria at Bridge Waters Hotel, Wuye Abuja.

The compendium, a follow-up on the breakfast meeting held in April, seeks to address the challenges and barriers affecting women and girls in Nigeria. It highlights gender issues and challenges across various sectors, including governance, education, business, sports, health, security, media, agriculture, and mining.

The document provides recommendations and effective strategies for fostering inclusive leadership policies, including strengthening legal and policy frameworks, implementing affirmative action, providing equal access to resources, supporting survivors of gender-based violence, and challenging harmful gender stereotypes.

Stakeholders in attendance provided various observations and recommendations, including the need for mental health education for women, incorporating mental health topics in education curriculum, simplifying the national gender policy for grassroots education, targeted political education for women, increased sensitization on gender-based violence, and humanizing the document with real-life examples.

The event emphasized the critical role of advocacy at all levels of government ministries in Nigeria, as gender issues are a concern for everyone. The upcoming public launch of the compendium will mark a significant step toward advancing gender equity and inclusive leadership in Nigeria.

Follow up on the validation meeting will be, making the document comprehensive by including all recommendations made and a possible public launch of the compendium.

The Strengthening Civil Advocacy and Local Engagement (SCALE) project dissemination meeting took place on August 14th and 15th, 2024, at Ibeto Hotels in Abuja. The meeting brought together approximately 50 attendees, including representatives from FIDA, Caritas, Lawyers Alert, FOMWAN, Gender Commission, Gender Mobile, NILOWV, Talita Kumi, CSWI, Palladium, and traditional rulers.

The primary objective of the meeting was to present and analyze SCALE’s project on Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) and Child, Early, and Forced Marriage (CEFM). The project aimed to combat these issues through a comprehensive approach, including research, capacity building, justice administration, referral system strengthening, awareness, and community engagement. SCALE’s project also promoted Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) in advocacy, recognizing the importance of inclusive practices in creating lasting change.

The meeting highlighted the innovative strategies employed by SCALE, such as the 4-2-1 Push SMS Report system, which enabled survivors of SGBV to access support. Additionally, community bye-laws, including VAPP and ACG, were consolidated to charge offenders to court. Stakeholders resolved to champion sustainability initiatives, ensuring that the positive results achieved by the project would be preserved and continue to thrive in the long term.

The meeting outcomes included a deeper understanding of diversity and inclusion concepts among stakeholders, as well as strengthened clusters to inform organizational policy. Moving forward, the next steps include developing contextual checklists for mainstreaming diversity and inclusion, consolidating the efficacy of community by-laws, especially VAPP, and disseminating the 4-2-1 Push SMS Report system for SGBV survivors.

This meeting marked a significant milestone in the fight against Sexual and Gender Based Violence and Child, Early Forced Marriage.

In a bid to amplify the voices of women in governance decision-making and equip them with essential leadership skills, HipCity organized a two-day leadership training for mapped local women from Sabo Iddo, Durumi I,II, III, IDP Camp and Karshi communities.

The event held at Women Environmental Programme office, Gaduwa Estate, Abuja.

The training aimed at empowering women to demand spaces in governance decisions, enhance their leadership capabilities, and prepare them for an upcoming town-hall meeting, was facilitated by Dr. Damilola Agbalajobi, an Associate Professor and Acting Head of Department, Political Science at Obafemi Awolowo, Ile-Ife, Osun, Nigeria.

The training commenced with introductory remarks from Mr. Bassey, emphasizing the importance of women’s participation in decision-making processes. He highlighted the upcoming town-hall meeting, where women would take charge with support from Hipcity. A representative of Henrich Boll Stifung, expressed delight at the engagement and encouraged the participants to actively participate in the training.

Taking the first topic- Understanding Women’s Role in Decision Making, Dr. Damilola Agbalajobi elucidated the intricacies of decision-making processes and the significance of women’s involvement. She outlined the steps involved in decision-making and emphasized the benefits of women’s participation, including the introduction of gender quotas, conflict prevention, and fostering inclusivity. Dr. Damilola also identified barriers hindering women’s participation, such as patriarchy, education level, and lack of confidence.

The facilitator explained electoral processes in Nigeria and the importance of self-confidence in pursuing leadership roles. Techniques for developing self-confidence were discussed, including positive affirmations and identifying role models. The session emphasized the different types of power and encouraged participants to recognize and harness their inner strength.

Explaining on how to develop mobilization skills essential for effective leadership, Dr. Damilola, emphasized on strategic planning and communication. Participants learned to leverage time management and delegation for impactful mobilization efforts. The session concluded with insights into teamwork and collaboration.

Other topics covered by the training was, communication skill and Knowledge about Leadership and Decision-making Roles.

Participants engaged in breakout sessions to deliberate on community challenges and propose solutions. Issues ranging from infrastructure deficiencies to unemployment were addressed, with solutions including community advocacy and collaboration with local authorities.

High point of the event were class activities, role plays and commitment by the women to share their skills and support other women in skills empowerment, to be the voice for other women. Others promised to mobilize more women to step down the training and encourage women to stand by their power.

Concluding the session, Mr. Bassey encouraged participants to leverage their newfound skills to drive community development and mobilize more women for their upcoming town-hall meetings. He emphasized the importance of women’s voices and urged them to stand out and add value to their communities.

The comprehensive training session provided women with the knowledge, skills, and confidence necessary to actively engage in governance and leadership roles, paving the way for inclusive and equitable decision-making processes.

Many cultures in Nigeria, up till this time, still consider women lesser humans to men and would not allow women speak in the council of men and are outrightly excluded in decision making matters.

While all of these are our realities, we cannot forget to applaud the doggedness of Nigerian women and women all over the world, who are excelling in STEM industries hitherto dominated by men, we applaud the resilience of women in leadership positions who continue to show that women can lead and achieve impactful results.

The COVID-19 pandemic had accelerated global transition to a dominant tech world, with many jobs now being tech based and markets taking advantage of the new realities. As we recognize the enormous opportunities that the digital world has brought we must also make efforts to close the digital gap between male and female. It is evident that we have fewer women in the tech industry and to close this gap, concerted efforts must be made to ensure that more women and girls are provided mentorship opportunities, scholarships and trainings to acquire these on-demand tech skills so as not to decelerate the gains that has been recorded in lifting women out of poverty.

Therefore we re-echo and reaffirm the demands from UN Women and we “This 8 March, we are calling on governments, activists and the private sector alike to power on in their efforts to make the digital world safer, more inclusive and more equitable. Facing a multiplicity of global crises, we have a chance to create a better future—not just for women and girls, but for all humanity and all life on Earth. Join us”. 

UN Women

Don’t forget to join us on radio tomorrow Kiss 99.9 FM Abuja as we host a program to commemorate the day. See flier for details

The uncertainty surrounding the capability of women to be effective leaders is underlined by a disconnect between the cultural construct of women and the requirements of leadership in Nigeria.

Globally the shift towards women in governance have yielded much needed results for countries who have embraced this paradigm shift. Stephanie Williams who is the acting special Representative and head of the UN Support Mission in Libya has successfully steered the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum (LPDF) through a series of breakthrough agreements in recent months that has culminated in the establishment of a unified executive authority to take Libya to national elections on 24 December 2021, an unprecedented achievement since the country descended into crises following the fall of former ruler Muammar Gadaffi in 2011.

Similar data across several countries has shown that countries with female leaders are responding better to the Coronavirus Pandemic and so despite Taiwan’s close proximity to China the source of the Pandemic the country through concerted efforts from its Prime Minister Tsai Ing-wen and pro-activeness of its female Digital Minister, Audrey Tang who leveraged technology to build an effective face mask rationing and digital quarantine system that has kept the virus under check recording a total of 955 cases and 919 recoveries.

The exemplary leadership of Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor has also seen Germany recording the lowest rate of Covid 19 deaths in Western Europe. Angela Merkel has governed Germany for more than 14 years and has successfully managed several crises in the course of her chancellery the 2008 financial crisis, the Eurozone debt crisis, the influx of migrants in 2015 and the Coronavirus. Through it all her leadership style has been remarkable, guiding Germany into exerting increased influence in the European Union. Involving women in political processes has proven to be beneficial for all globally. Nigerian women remain largely underrepresented in the political space despite the fact that 49% of the Nigerian population are women.

Only seven women are in the current Senate and the National Assembly has refused to enlarge the space for women to participate in political, business and civic arenas through the gender and equal opportunities bill and 35% affirmative action which is an investment in a more equitable, just, and peaceful nation. Despite these setbacks Nigerian women continue to prove that women in positions of authority tend to be more passionate and committed to seeing good governance and democracy enthroned.

The heroics and achievements of late Dr Ameyo Adadevoh, who ensured that the Ebola virus did not have an accelerated spread, Dr Ngozi Okonjo Iweala and Mrs Amina J Mohammed are all indicators to the possibilities women in governance bring to the table and just like the British High commissioner to Nigeria Mrs Catriona Laing noted, challenging the social norms and cultural patriarchy that enable gender discrimination in the Nigerian society such as child marriages, the land use Act as it affects women and the gender and equal opportunity bill are critical to balancing the gender parity in Nigeria and breaking the glass ceiling.

The world is at a pivotal moment and Nigeria must capitalize on this momentum and ensure women’s voices are not only present but heard in the political processes and the decision-making table.

Over time, the Skills Gaps Assessment report from the Industrial Training Fund (ITF) highlights various industries where skilled manpower are lacking, these reports remain largely unknown to young people in tertiary universities, colleges of education and our technical colleges.

Our intention for this baseline study is to engage with the Skills Gaps Assessment Report recently released by the ITF and UNIDO and to drive a campaign to universities and other institutions of learning to enlighten young people on the array of opportunities that exist instead of hanging on to white collar jobs are daily being replaced with Artificial Intelligence and/or robo

Our objective is to understand the depth of urban poverty and why government tailored propoor interventions has not the altered the poverty compass in over four decades now.

Our methodology was to select a pilot urban slum (Mabushi village), a slum settlement in the heart of the federal capital territory with all the indices of a slum. We embedded ten (10) trained young individuals with ethnographic research skills, relationship and psychological human analysis skills, photo—documentary skills into the slum without altering the natural sequence of the slum life.

Our team of researchers lived in the slum, and experienced all the phases of life by seeking for jobs in the day and bustling with the people at night. This approach helped our team bond naturally with the people and their acceptance by the people opened up space to probe into the personal lives of the people they had contact with, shared in the pains and celebrated their little successes over life daily struggles.

With a sense of awareness by our team in the slum, they were able to guide the to guide the locales into organizing themselves and seeking to harness their social capital into solving their most pressing needs through a platform tagged “Local solution Lab”. The local solution lab facilitated by our team members who were not embedded into the slum created a sharing opportunity for both the young and old to discuss freely about their shared problems and interest ( this is something that seldom happens, as only the council of chiefs hold meetings and then announces their resolutions to the people).

The identified prioritized needs and solutions became a charter of demand for the people, a tool with which they now will use to engage with political candidates who come seeking for votes and attempting to lure some youths into nefarious acts.

Our overarching goal is to expose our findings to government, policymakers and development partners on proactive sustainable pro-poor interventions that will have meaningful impact on the economic status of urban poor, build sustainable business in slums; operated by slum dwellers and also create a learning system through which young people in slums can acquire trainings that can change/break the cycle of poverty that envelops them.

In 2017, our organization was one of the few organizations that reviewed the Nigerian National Youth Manifesto on Agriculture, the manisfesto describes in clear terms how youths can be the drivers of the revolution in the agricultural sector, being aware that the Agricultural sector still remains the highest sector that offers employment to the ever-burgeoning youth population in Nigeria.

In terms of Advocacy, we were actively involved in catalysing young people to demand from their respective law makers to support the passage of the Not Too Young To Run Bill, and at the moment we are a coalition member of the #FundNationalLibrary Campaign- a movement of CSOs and NGOs who have mandated themselves to engage government to increase budgetary appropriations for the completion of the National Library Complex Abuja that has been abandoned, 16 years since the project was commissioned.

Yearly, we lead campaigns and advocacy to primary schools and communities to sensitize them on proper handwashing and the importance of toilets in a bid to dissuade the people from open defecation. During these periods we trained school kids and community members on the construction of Tippy-taps to promote proper handwashing.

As members of the Partnership Against Violent Extremism (PAVE)- A network of CSOs and NGOs working in conflict prone exposed communities, we have been active in developing counter messaging strategies with the network and
have mainstreamed preventing and countering Violent Extremism (PCVE) into all our activities and programs.