Voices For Women’s Health, Stakeholders Meet, Accelerate Gender Mainstreaming

To amplify advocacy efforts on the critical state of women’s health in Nigeria as commemorations for Women’s Month reach its peak, and to sustain the momentum on the need to achieve gender mainstreaming across sectors, the Voices for Women’s Health Stakeholder Meeting is set to hold in Abuja tomorrow.

Convened as an off-shoot of the #ICommit Partnership for Goals Policy and Behavioural Change Campaign flagged-off in May 2022 by the Minister for Women Affairs, Dame Pauline K. Tallen, the Voices for Women’s Health Stakeholder Meeting seeks to accelerate concerted and targeted action towards advancing the health and rights of women in Nigeria. 

With access to quality and affordable healthcare as a fundamental index of women’s empowerment and its implication for livelihood sustainability, and as Nigeria goes through the present leadership transition period, organizers believe it is time to mobilise multi-sectoral effort to shape new priorities that will enhance quality, supportive and effective decision-making as they affect women’s health. 

In a release co-signed by the country director of Pathfinder International, Dr. Amina Aminu Dorayi and the Founder, She Forum Africa,  Inimfon Etuk, the duo maintain it is important to galvanize effort if Nigeria is to meet the SDG Goals and achieve gender equality ahead of the 2030 SDG target set by the United Nations.

The Nigeria Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ), the National Council for Women Societies (NCWS), Women in Global Health (WGH) Nigeria,  the International Society for Media in Public Health (ISMPH), the Centre for Communication and Social Impact (CCSI), the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), the Deaf Women Aloud Initiative (DWAI), the Medical Women International Association and a host of others, in related statements, endorsed the Voices for Women’s Health campaign as timely and key to enabling transformational change and advancing the agency of women and girls in Nigeria.

The March 30 stakeholder meeting will bring together government officials, leaders of thought and health-sector professionals including civil society organizations and the media to review the state of women’s health in Nigeria, appraise progress, identify evidence-based gaps, rally accelerated multi-sectoral support and solutions for evolving a workable framework that will inspire, sensitize, enable and strengthen policy action in furtherance of the Gender Mainstreaming agenda in Nigeria.