The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Dr. (Mrs.) Zainab Ahmed, on Thursday harped on the criticality of women and girls’ roles in achieving the collective dream of building a prosperous and resilient country for all in Nigeria.
The minister, in her Goodwill Message at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) International Day Commemorative event with the theme ‘Gender Equality Today for A Sustainable Tomorrow’, held in Abuja, noted that achieving the dream of a prosperous and inclusive growth for all required gender-sensitive policies that would enable women and girls to achieve their potential.
The minister stressed: “If we are to have a stronger and more inclusive economy, it is crucial that we take a long term and strategic approach to ensuring that women are economically empowered. We must continue working towards the development and implementation of policies, regulatory frameworks, and programmes that are inclusive and gender-sensitive; and we must remove the socio-economic and cultural barriers that prevent women from participating fully in society and from reaping the economic benefits of their participation.”
Ahmed said that funding and gender sensitive fiscal policies, credible disaggregate data and impact monitoring and evaluation remained critical to achieving Nigeria’s sustainable growth.
On revenue generation drive, the minister explained that the government was prioritising work towards improving internally generated revenue, blocking tax leakages, creating new tax sources, and promoting effective tax collection.
According to her, this is being achieved in part through continued implementation of the Strategic Revenue Generation Initiative (SRGI), and through continued incremental fiscal reforms via the introduction of annual Finance Bills, as well as reducing administrative inefficiencies and lowering the overall cost of governance.
“Through the implementation of the annual Finance Acts, we are providing tax relief and other support to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), many of which are women-owned,” she said.
In addition, she disclosed that the recently finalised medium term National Development Plan (NDP), she also stated, was developed with a gender lens, as will be the long term NDP currently being finalised.
She expatiated: “We at the Ministry of Finance, Budget & National Planning, are focusing on comprehensive gender mainstreaming across fiscal policy and public financial management. This holistic approach represents a critical paradigm shift towards systematic and scalable reforms, and leverages the coordination benefits of having the finance, budgeting and planning functionalities under the same federal ministry for the first time in Nigeria’s history.
“The interventions include gender responsive budgeting, and assessments of the gender responsiveness of key fiscal interventions (including fiscal stimulus packages) with specific commitments aimed at improving the safety, livelihoods, and economic status of women and girls.
“We have formally introduced a gender lens for our national budgets, with an express provision in the 2022 Budget Call Circular mandating the use of gender responsive budgeting in the preparation of the national budget”, the minister added.
Ahmed explained that Nigeria had started the development an Integrated National Financing Framework (INFF) to strengthen our planning processes; and strategically identify and mobilise the resources required to finance our most recent medium and long term development plans.
She assured that the government was committed to ensuring that the INFF is gender responsive, in line with overall government commitments around gender responsive national development planning and financing.
The minister maintained that “by empowering women and girls, and promoting their full participation in society (particularly in leadership and decision-making roles), we will be ensuring improved economic development outcomes for all.”
