PUNCH
The Federal Government has lamented that only 10 per cent of women own land in the country. This is according to a document released by the Ministry of Women Affairs, the National Women’s Economic Empowerment Policy and Action Plan, also known as WEE.
The ministry described the document as a roadmap for advancing women’s rights in Nigeria and the product of a year-long National WEE policy dialogue designed and implemented by the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs and the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning, with technical assistance from development partners and input from grassroots women, the private sector and Nigeria’s WEE ecosystem.
The 129-page document released on Wednesday revealed that while women accounted for 70 to 80 per cent of agricultural labour and output in Nigeria, only a measly 10 per cent own land in the country.
The document, which cited analysis from the Food and Agricultural Organisation, also noted that the country’s Gross Domestic Product could grow by $229bn over a decade if women engaged in the workforce at the same level as men.
According to the World Bank, closing the gender productivity gap in agriculture in Nigeria could boost GDP by at least $2.3bn and potentially, as much as $8.1bn due to spillover to other economic sectors.
The document however read, “Only one in five landowners in Nigeria is female. This accounts for only 10 per cent of all landowners in Nigeria. Women farmers also produce an average of 30 per cent less than their male counterparts.
“The scale of women’s engagement in the sector suggests that any initiative to empower Nigerian women and make them productive members of the economy must consider the agriculture sector.
“Women entrepreneurs earn 66 per cent lower profits than men entrepreneurs; women own less capitalised enterprises– evidence suggests that if women-owned enterprises increased capital investment to equal that of male-owned enterprises, women entrepreneurs’ profits would increase by 25 per cent. About 95 per cent of women entrepreneurs, who sell to the final consumer businesses that sell to final consumers, earn 46 per cent lower profits than those selling to other businesses/traders. This makes the sector a major site for WEE-focused policy and programming.
“Similar disparities also exist along the socio-political dimension. Data from the World Bank, the World Health Organisation, the International Labour Organisation, and United Nations Women show that Nigerian women have less access to quality healthcare, legal protection and political representation than Nigerian men.”
The document noted further that several political and socio-cultural factors had historically limited progress on women’s economic empowerment in Nigeria, leading to the current status quo.
It listed the factors to include ineffective programmes, limited funding, technical capacity bottlenecks, purely welfare-based interventions, and normative barriers.
It added, “Policy gaps and limited women’s voice in policy and programmatic design have also served as a significant bottleneck to truly transformative and multi-sectoral WEE-focused government interventions.”
However, the Federal Government said it was resolved to close these gaps and create opportunities for partnership and collaboration with the private and social sectors in order to drive effective implementation of WEE-focused interventions.
