…..harps gender inclusion, mainstreaming conflict sensitivity
The United States Agency for International Development, State Accountability, Transparency and Effectiveness, State2State Activity, has organised quarterly meeting for Desk, Gender and Social Inclusion officers in Gombe State.
Periscope Nigeria reports that the meeting which was held on Thursday at the Custodian Hotel, had in attendance representatives from Persons With Disabilities, as well as Ministries, Departments, and Agencies in Gombe State.
Our correspondent reports that S2S supports states to plan and budget, raise revenues, increase civil society participation, and oversee service delivery in Health; Education, and Water, Sanitation, & Hygiene sectors by building relevant capacities.
It’s implemented by Development Alternatives Incorporated.
Gombe is one of the six states in Nigeria benefitting from the five-year, State2State Activity.
Speaking, GESI Coordinator, Chabiyada Eli, explained that the meeting presented ample opportunity for coordination of activities on harvested outcomes for implementation within the MDAs, noting that participants were expected to write reports and submit to their principal officers on the issues discussed.
Eli said, “Our mandates also align with the agenda of the Gombe State Government, so we are not working outside what they are doing. We all know S2S core principle is to mainstream social and gender inclusion and also mainstream conflict sensitivity using a do-not-harm approach.
“GESI is cross-cutting, is not just an issue for women but also an issue for men, people with disabilities and other vulnerable groups, how is the government planning their intervention and carrying all these groups of people along and ensuring that their needs are met especially in the service delivery sector of Health, Education, and Water, Sanitation & Hygiene.”
According to Eli, the one-day quarterly meeting harped on how desk officers will mainstream gender and social inclusion, adding that by so doing, the people would benefit from improved governance
“We trained them when they were appointed by their MDAs, we conducted a training on gender and social inclusion mainstreaming and also on disability inclusion, so with that training they will be equipped to be able to use the GESI lens to ensure their MDAs activities carry the citizens along which include male, female PWDs, and other vulnerable groups like widows, market women association and how they are been carried along.
“One of the things we do is to educate the desk and GESI officers on how important the use of the GESI budget is. It could be used to address issues that could affect both male and female needs within their MDAs and within, also in the communities or citizens of the state.
“We are hoping that it will create inclusivity in governance and at the end of the day, we are hoping to see good governance achieved and one element of good governance is inclusion, having a government that carries everyone along in its planning and implementation of activities,” said the Gender and Social Inclusion Specialist.
Commenting further the GESI Specialist disclosed that the discussion also hinged on the 2024 citizens’ budget preparation process and how officers were requested to provide updates on how they supported the process, adding “From the feedback we’ve received from some of the representatives of MDAs, which referred to the year 2023 budget plan which was highly instrumental in the building of ramps to ensure inclusive access to their offices and building of gender, friendly restrooms.”
“Currently, the GESI and desk officers were not heavily involved in the preparation of the 2024 budget because is a process that is been controlled by the Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning but from our meeting, there is a consensus that each GESI and desk officers generally will engage in their agencies to see also how they can also be more part of their budget process beyond the budget consultations that were done in December. The effort they took wasn’t significant in mainstreaming GESI in the budget preparation process but there were still budget items that were GESI friendly, so what is left now is for the MDAs to work with the Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning to see how GESI budget-related items can also be explicitly outlined in the citizens’ budget,” Eli added.
Also speaking, Local Governance Manager, Zariyatu Abubakar-Hasidu, who presented on ‘Mainstreaming Conflict Sensitivity in Governance’, noted that stakeholders are many with diverse interests, stressing that every interest should be duly examined.
She said, “While some are interested in A, B, or C, there can be conflict because they have different levels of influence. One may be more and the other may be less while they are trying to push their interests conflict is bound to arise so these processes help the participants to understand the fact that they must be sensitive to these diverse interests of stakeholders and find the way to ensure that whatsoever is done in terms of governance and service delivery do not harm anyone.
“Let the interest of all the stakeholders be well acknowledged even though resources are limited and we can’t meet the needs, but there’s a way governance can be delivered in such a way that nobody is harmed, everybody understands the constraints of the government, and are all collaborating to ensure that good governance is delivered in the state. So the need for dialogue is to know how to identify, prevent, and also resolve conflicts.”
Speaking further Abubakar-Hasidu added that “Mainstreaming of conflict sensitivity in governance is an issue that is of utmost importance to us in S2S because, in every Ministry, Department and Agency, there is likelihood of conflict and when there are deliberate efforts to ensure that conflict does not happen that is when you are been sensitive of the different concepts that come through the MDAs. We try to ensure that the desk officers and other officers that were engaged are familiar with the difference in the likelihood of conflicts arising within their domain and how they can consciously mitigate such conflicts either by having a structured process or even unstructured ones that the informal process of ensuring that conflicts do not happen.”
A participant, who is a desk officer representing the Ministry of Water Environment and Forest Resources, Dunmo Masa, commended the efforts of USAID’s State2State Activity in Gombe State.
Masa urged S2S officials to intensify sensitisation across relevant ministries to make their task seamless, adding “We are just the middlemen connecting whatever we are going to do if we are not carrying it along with the management we will be having problems that are why we say let the State2State go for sensitisation and involve them in our activities so we will now be enjoined how to relate with the activities within the ministries.”
“We have been doing the reporting only that the tempo was a bit weak at the moment, this was a result of the recent change of Commissioners and Permanent Secretaries in the state.
Initially, when we were doing these activities we didn’t involve citizens but as a result of S2S now we know about the citizen’s accountability and transparency State is highly welcome and we gladly enjoy them,” Masa added.
On her part, Aisha Ahmed-Abubakar, staff of Gombe Internal Revenue Service said the quarterly meeting reminds officers of the need to take into consideration the needs of citizens in their various MDAs.
“We will be sure that the PWDs are been considered, for example in the Gombe State Revenue Service we will ensure that we have ramps in place for taxpayers so that PWDs can come into the service conveniently and ensure that all due process is observed to enable them to pay their taxes conveniently,” she said.
Ahmed-Abubakar urged all the GESI desk officers to put more effort into making sure that all the groups are well taken care of adding, “Because they are citizens just like us and we have to make sure that they are comfortable with all government processes. Who knows the next person who is going to be physically challenged tomorrow, for the fact that they found themselves in that kind of situation does not make them any less of a person because they are citizens and they have all the rights like every other citizen.”
