By JOHN ONAH, Abuja –
The United Nations Women Representative in Nigeria, Lasagna Wonneh disclosed that 90% of the people supplying good and services to government and private sector in Nigeria are men.
He disclosed this at the on going business symposium with the theme: “Advancing Gender Equality through Procurement: A Gender-Responsive Procurement Symposium”, holding in UN House in Abuja.
According to him, the symposium aimed to celebrate and empower women entrepreneurs while fostering dialogue on the challenges and opportunities they face in today’s business landscape.
“What we are doing in this initiative is to make sure that deliberately, we support women owned businesses so that they can have access to procurement chain, principally of the government and also the private sector”, he said.
He noted that government does a lot of procurement but their research has shown that 90% of them are done by men.
“Greater gender equality can enhance economic productivity, improve development outcomes for the next generation, and make institutions and policies more representative. Many gender disparities remain even as countries develop, which calls for sustained and focused public action”, he added
He opined further that women’s economic empowerment is central to realizing women’s rights and gender equality.
“Women’s economic empowerment includes women’s ability to participate equally in existing markets; their access to and control over productive resources, access to decent work, control over their own time, lives and bodies; and increased voice, agency and meaningful participation in economic decision-making at all levels from the household to international institutions”.
On his part in a chat with NATIONAL ACCORD after the opening ceremony of the symposium, the UN procurement network chairman in Nigeria, Daniel KUHE, stated that the symposium was to expose the workings of UN to women entrepreneurs in the country.
” We have about UN agencies in Nigeria, right now we are unified as we have about 800 vendors on our roaster which we promised to expand. About 100 women who turned up for this symposium will be the target”, he said.
“What we know is that, women occupy 60% of the population and that means 60% of talent, we want them to come into the toaster. We want to have mentorship class to give women opportunity to collaborate base on the information they are getting today. We teach them to keep this information and going to be a lifetime mentorship”, he added.
DISCLAIMER
The OPINION / COLUMN is authored by independent contributors to the National Accord Newspaper. While contributors adhere to our editorial guidelines, they are not employed by the National Accord Newspaper. The perspectives and opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author and do not represent the views of the National Accord Newspaper or its staff.