Nigeria Cannot Achieve Poverty Reduction Target Without Women — World Bank

The Country Director of the World Bank,  Shubham Chaudhuri has said that without the full participation of women and girls, Nigeria will not achieve the target of lifting 100 million people out of poverty.

Chaundhuri stated this during a Ministerial Session on “All hands-on Deck- Exploring Multi-sectorial and intersectional part ways for driving women’s empowerment in Nigeria” at the 2022 Gender & Inclusion Summit in Abuja.

The summit was organised by the Policy Innovation Centre (PIC), an initiative of the Nigeria Economic Summit Group (NESG), with the theme, “Connecting the Dots for a Gender Inclusive Society.”

“The goal is to lift 100 million people out of poverty.

"It is a simple fact that without the full economic participation and empowerment of women and girls, Nigeria will not attain that goal.

“We have a world development report about 10 years ago on gender equality, and the tagline for that is, gender equality is not just the right thing to do, it is the smart thing to do.

“If you want economic growth, if you want inclusive jobs, you have to bring women and girls into the economic space,” he explained.

Also, Hajiya Zainab Ahmed, Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, said the ministry had initiated programmes targeted at empowering women and reducing poverty in the country.

Ahmed, said that 60 per cent of women-owned businesses benefited from its Economic Sustainable Development (ESP) initiative across the nation.

“The Federal Government of Nigeria has the Government Enterprise Empowerment Programme (GEEP), and the largest proportion of beneficiaries of the programme are women.

“We have also the Conditional Cash Transfer programme, 93 per cent of the caregivers are women.

“So, there is a conscious policy decision by the government to look at areas where women will benefit more and do better,” she said.