Diplomatic missions are positions held by ambassadors who are in other countries to ‘represent’ and ‘foster’ relations in designated areas. The Women in Diplomacy Index 2022 shows gender imbalance in representation in 40 countries with largest economies in the world and EU. This data shows that Nigeria, with a total number of mission pegged at 77, has 15 women as ambassadors. Nigeria currently isn’t in the G7 or G20 States.
The ranking on gender gap parity, uses parameters like economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, political appointment and financial exclusion/wealth accumulation of the female gender in the world. None of this parameters positions women favourable in Nigeria
Today, religious tenets differ from doctrine to doctrine. Treatment of women and men follow certain rules that emphasises the dominance of powers over women and religion upholds and guards this. Women are treated differently in bodies they carry, expectations vary depending on class difference. Institutions of power have written the tenets from religion, into their organisations policy. Politics and entrepreneurship have reinforced the exclusion of women in positions of leadership. And why won’t they, you just need to look across the country to realise that women are not in leadership positions of religious and traditional institutions.
While the imposition of gender on our Nation had negative intentions, we can transform this into a positive change and utilise it as a “check” on meeting the needs of us all- men and women. The Gender ideology we have today should be challenged so that as a concept, it can be used to transform our society to be inclusive of the representation of us all.
There’s still a business development and financial literacy education gap in orientation of start ups and scaling sustainable businesses in Nigeria. While these loans can be a way to support women in businesses, there are factors that still limit Economic Justice such as CAC registration, Tax, Human Capacity, Resources, Security, NAFDAC, Advertising Agency Fees, and then Leadership. Nigeria has more to do, to show accountability and commitment to give women, and push benefit realisation and economic advantage women led businesses bring. The social norms and expectations of women in Nigeria and the economics of Care, are areas that require addressing and long term interventions.
EmPOWERment has embedded meaning in varying contexts. The word in itself can mean the positioning for a positive and progressive possibility. It can mean enabling either a person, economy or environment, to achieve objectives that seemed unattainable. Empowerment is being used as a language and terminology for the re-positioning towards an ideal, somewhat better and more profitable outcome. While this language and meaning can be nuanced, there is no denying the fact that empowerment and empowering is binary focussed.
Analysing unemployment and underemployment figures require a more nuanced approach to determine the causative factors that has generated a multi-dimensional poverty status. Nigeria requires the work from her population to meet National and Global living conditions. This remains a National Issue.
Out-of-date, gender-biased lending practices often mean female entrepreneurs are more likely to get higher interest rates, smaller loan amounts and increased penalties for mistakes.
ddressing these disparities is crucial for fostering a more inclusive and sustainable business environment. Environment of business scalability is also expensive to run with bills, taxes, resources that at are competent with capacity, infrastructure and security requires evaluation when reviewing loans and funding for women led businesses.
Nigeria has a growing – working population that are youth centred, the unemployment and underemployment figures according to National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), increasing year on year, also shows that women are significantly impacted more than men. The gender implications for women in security, poverty, health, leadership and political representation, is on the rise. While a solution is to create an environment that nurtures everyone inclusively, the economic interventions are still limiting and its impact affects women’s economic power.