Ford Foundation, TechnoServe Unveil Report On Women Empowerment, GBV In W’Africa

Ford Foundation West Africa and TechnoServe, a non-governmental organisation dedicated to providing business solutions to poverty, have launched a report on understanding the nexus between Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) and Gender-based Violence (GBV) in West Africa.

The report was launched by the Ford Foundation’s program officer for Gender, Racial, and Ethnic Justice, Mrs Olufunke Baruwa, along with the Country Director of TechnoServe, Mrs Adesuwa Akinboro, at WEE-GBV Nexus Research Report Dissemination and Close-out on Friday in Abuja.

Speaking to LEADERSHIP at the event, Baruwa explained that Ford Foundation supported the research because one of its two major program areas was gender, racial and ethnic justice.

“We supported the research because we have two major program areas. One is natural resource and climate change and the second one is gender, racial and ethnic justice which I cover, specifically focuses on Gender-based Violence (GBV) and our strategy there is looking at prevention as a response to GBV.

“In that light, we are trying to look at factors that lead to the perpetration of GBV. Although, our primary focus is looking at social norms, religious and cultural narratives that passively encourage GBV. We know that there are other factors that lead to GBV. From the research we are supporting TechnoServe to do, we look at the interplay between GBV and WEE.”

On her part, the Country Director of TechnoServe, Mrs Adesuwa Akinboro, said: “Because TechnoServe as an organization believes in business solutions to poverty, we know that there a lot of very hardworking men and women across the world and in Nigeria that is not an exception.

“We believe very strongly in empowering these men and women to increase their incomes, to strengthen their businesses, so that they can generate incomes to pull themselves out of poverty. So, in all our programming, we ensure that at least 40% of those we are empowering are women.”

She reiterated that the purpose of the research was to speak to women, stakeholders, communities, institutions of faith and culture in the three countries where the research was carried out – Nigeria, Senegal and Ghana – to understand their perspectives and thoughts and then what is going on in the society.

Akinboro described the findings from the reports as “very interesting”, adding that if a woman is economically empowered, people respect her voice a lot more as she navigates the power dynamics in her home and community.

Dr Daniel Abah, who presented the research findings, stated that the nexus between WEE and GBV was complex and contextual.

He related the power dynamics to religion, income level/economic status, and educational level, among others.