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A gender advocate, Dr Funmilayo Agbaje, has stressed the need for training of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and women organisations in the area of gender inclusion in their activities.
Agbaje also urged them to develop and implement action plans that would engender the realisation of goals of their organisations.
The gender advocate, also a lecturer of Gender Studies at the Department of Peace, Security and Humanitarian Studies, University of Ibadan, spoke with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the sidelines of a training workshop for CSOs and women organisations in the South- West.
NAN reports that the training, which was supported by Women Engage for A Just Future (WECF), focussed majorly on “Development and Implementation of Action Plans for CSOs and Women Organisations in the South- West”.
It was organised by the Environmental Conflict Mediation and Women Support Initiative (ECOMAWDI), in partnership with Women Environmental Programme (WEP), Nigeria, under the Green Livelihoods Alliance (GLA) “Forest for a Just Future Programme”.
According to her, they are also the spokepersons for the under-represented groups in the society.
“Because of this, it became imperative for us to train them in the area of gender inclusion in their activities,” she said.
Agbaje said that women were highly populated with more than 50 per cent of them represented in the society in terms of individuals.
“When it comes to bringing women to the policy level in governance where their voices will be heard, we noticed that the reverse is the case.
“That does not mean the women are not making an underground contribution to the development of the society, just that some of their contributions are not well documented and articulated,” she said.
Agbaje implored the Federal, State and Local Governments, stakeholders in the education sector, religious bodies and the media to ensure that activities of these female-based CSOs were well documented.
“Every stakeholder should ensure that people are aware of their great contributions to the society, particularly, governance.
Agbaje, who was a Resource person at the training, defined an action plan as “a document that lists what steps must be taken in order to achieve a specific goal”.
According to her, it is a checklist for the steps or tasks you need to complete in order to achieve the goals you have set.
“The purpose of the action plan is to clarify what resources are required to reach the goal, formulate a timeline for when specific tasks need to be completed and determine what resources are required.
“It is an essential part of the strategic planning process and helps with improving teamwork planning,” she said.
Agbaje said that an action plan was not only useful in project planning, but could also be used by individuals to prepare a strategy to achieve their own personal goals.
“An action plan consists of seven steps: setting objectives, assessing the identifying action required to meet the objectives, working out how to evaluate the activity and agreeing a time-frame for action.
“Other steps are: identifying resources (human, financial and technical), finishing the plan and evaluating results,” she said.
Agbaje explained that the action plans were necessary for CSOs to enable them to help to finish activities in a sensible order and ensure that they don’t miss any key step.
She urged the participants and women-led organisations and CSOs to draw their own gender action plans.
Agbaje said that the training was expedient for CSOs and women organisations in the South-West, adding “they are the backbones of society” .
She said: “CSOs are advocates, they are the ones that can push an agenda, especially when it concerns people who are not given the opportunities to be part of governance before now.
“So, they tend to rely more on CSOs and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) to do so.” (NAN)
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Tags: ECOMAWDI Funmilayo Agbaje University of Ibadan WECF
