United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM)

United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) is the women's fund at the United Nations. It provides financial and technical assistance to innovative programmes and strategies to foster women's empowerment and gender equality.

Goal 3 of the MDGs is to promote gender equality and empower women. It challenges discrimination against women, ensuring that more women become literate, have more voice and representation in public policy and decision making, and have improved job prospects. However, the issue of gender equality is not limited to a single goal - it applies to all of them. Without progress towards gender equality and the empowerment of women, none of the MDGs will be achieved.

UNIFEM in Nigeria

ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT OF WOMEN:

UNIFEM in collaboration with UNDP in Nigeria developed a programme to empower women in selected communities of the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria (Ona LGA in Akwa Ibom, Warri South West In Delta State and Ikwere LGA of Rivers State) to actualize their economic potentials, through enhanced access to information, technical and organizational skills, finance and technology support to guarantee their individual rights and security.

UNIFEM has established a Gender Budget Network comprised of civil society organizations working on budgeting reforms in Nigeria to undergo gender analysis for better resource allocation to women. Gender budget analyses of the following departments were conducted: the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Enugu state, the Ministry of Health, Akwa Ibom state - the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. These pilot studies are published and continue to be a key resource in the country. Gender budgeting training manual was produced to train critical planning and budgeting officers in government, the Legislature and to develop advocates for GRB amongst civil society.

UNIFEM has also developed a practical manual for mainstreaming gender analysis and gender equality principles in SEEDS. The publication which was launched on May 9, 2006, was adopted and is promoted by the National Planning Commission as its main tool for facilitating the integration of gender equality and women's empowerment considerations and targets in SEEDS-based programmes and resource allocation.

UNIFEM is also working with the Public Enlightenment Project (PEP), a non-governmental organization through an Economic Empowerment Programme in Sharia States of the Northern Nigeria, to educate policy makers, CSOs, community and religious leaders, and women on the rights of women and the need to mainstream gender into the developmental process.

SOCIAL CHANGE:

The 2005 Women's Aid Collective (WACOL) under the UN Trust Fund managed by UNIFEM is carrying out programmes to ensure the implementation of existing laws and policies that will eradicate Gender Based Violence and also address the linkages between violence against women and HIV/AIDS in the South East of Nigeria.

UNIFEM has been working with the federal government (NACA) and states (SACA) to mainstream gender into the National Strategic Framework and State Strategic Plans which outline their respective responses to the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

POLITICAL SPACE FOR WOMEN PARTICIPATION:

UNIFEM is assisting the Nigerian government and women's groups in establishing mechanisms to routinely bring women's perspectives into national policy-making.

UNIFEM engages in capacity building and the provision of technical assistance to encourage women's participation in the political process and in politics. This approach is two pronged; firstly, UNIFEM assists INEC in building its technical capacity to mainstream gender into the electoral process, secondly, UNIFEM supports civil society initiatives that campaign for women's participation in political life. UNIFEM mobilized the media, NGOs, the government and the private sector to eliminate gender disparities in primary and general election in April 2007.