FOMWAN: making community development a priority (II)

An assessment of the status of women In Nigeria shows that in 2012, Nigeria ranked 118 on the Gender Inequality Index (The Global Gender Gap Report 2012). It highlighted the fact that discrimination against women permeates every sector of life in Nigeria and contributes to the worsening situation of poverty in the country. In agriculture, […]

An assessment of the status of women In Nigeria shows that in 2012, Nigeria ranked 118 on the Gender Inequality Index (The Global Gender Gap Report 2012). It highlighted the fact that discrimination against women permeates every sector of life in Nigeria and contributes to the worsening situation of poverty in the country. In agriculture, where women make up about 60-79% of the work force, they do not have access to land, as most of the communal land is controlled by the men. The Report shows that regardless of their educational qualifications, women earn less than their male counterparts and “occupy fewer than 30% of all posts in the public sector and only 17% of senior positions”.
In terms of access to resources, women have less access to educa-tion, money, land, skills and other resources required to empower citizens. Women therefore cons-titute the poorest of the poor worldwide. It is common to refer to feminization of poverty and development workers often underscore the fact that poverty wears a female face. Defined simply, ‘Community Development is the degree to which individuals (community members) are empo-wered with knowledge and skills that they may make self-fulfilling decisions about their future.’
Community development (CD) is ‘a broad term given to the practices of civic activists, involved citizens and professionals to build stronger and more resilient local communities. It seeks to empower individuals and groups of people by providing them with the skills they need to effect change in their own communities.’ One method of discussing the major issues in community development in this century is to relate it to achievement of the Millennium Development Goals MDGs
Adopted by the United Nations in September 2000, the Millennium Development Goals MDGs aim to reduce poverty in the world by half on or before 2015.
The MDGs has eight components and targets to be delivered were articulated. They goals are as follows:
Goal 1 Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.
Goal 2 Achieve universal primary education.
Goal 3 Promote gender equality and empower women.
Goal 4 Reduce child mortality. The target is to reduce by two-thirds by 2015, the under-five mortality rate.
Goal 5Improve maternal health Reduce by three-quarters by 2015, the maternal mortality ratio.
Goal 6 Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases. This goal together with the last two constitutes the life giving MDGs and it is focused on reversing the scourge of HIV/AIDS, malaria, Tuberculosis and other diseases. Goal 7 Ensure environmental sustainability change. Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development. One of the targets is to address the special needs of the Least Developed Countries, HIPC, cancellation of official bilateral debt, and more generous aid assistance.
After the opening ceremony, participants were divided into syndicate groups for paper pre-sentations and discussions. The papers presented were titled Acti-vities of Grassroots Women’s Groups: Sharing best practices by a group of experts led by Dr Mairo Mandara, the second presentation was on ‘Potentials for Grassroots Work and Building Capacity of Grass Roots Groups which was chaired by Alhaja Khairat Saddique. The third paper was titled ‘Interfaith Dialogue in the Tradition of the Prophet: Special Role of Women in Addressing the Rising Tide of Islamophobia’ and it was presented by Sheikh Khalid Aliyu the Secre-tary General of Jamaatu Nasril Islam JNI. Others were ‘The Power of Persuasion: Preaching Islam with Wisdom as Enjoined by the Qur’an which was presented by Mallam Muhammad Bin Othman and Catching Them Young: Engaging Youth in Community Development using the New Media which was presented by Hashim Usman.
After productive deliberations within the syndicate groups, the conference observed that:
-Lack of continuity in the implementation of laudable policy initiatives which cause a major setback in the attainment of desired national development.
-The full potentials of resourceful women are not fully utilised by government at all levels.
-Civil Society Organisations, Non-governmental organisations, but lack of resources, capacity and synergy make community development a mirage
-The growing misunderstanding of ethics and values amongst followers of different religions often leads to violent conflicts and Islamophobia which is an irrational stigmatization and stereotyping of Muslims.
-High prevalence of poverty, unem-ployment and ignorance, are key factors that fuel youth restiveness in the society.
-Inability of the Muslim Ummah to properly and adequately harness and utilize its vast human resources hampers development
-Lack of mainstreaming of stra-tegic visioning into community deve-lopment programming results in low impact on the Ummah
-Lack of synergy, networking and improper use of propagation strategies among Islamic organisations in Nigeria
– Note the raging controversies and debates over the right age of a Muslim girl’s marriage
– The Negative impact of social media on the Muslim Ummah, espe-cially the youth
FOMWAN recommends that:
– Governments at all levels should imbibe the culture of continuity while implementing community deve-lopment programmes
– There should be Gender mains-treaming in all facets of development endeavours, particularly by government at all levels in order to utilize the full potentials of our resourceful women
– Community development should be protected from of partisan politics
– There is need to promote know-ledge in alternative mediation strategies like interfaith dialogue, advocacy and education to create awareness and foster greater understanding among different religions by government and CSOs
-There is the need to focus on building the capacity of CSOs and NGOs for grassroots development
-There is need for create employ-ment and educational opportunities by all stakeholders to curb youth restiveness
-There should be effective utili-zation of Islamic institutions and the vast Muslim human resources to instil discipline and inculcate Islamic virtues and values in the youth
-Government and all implementing partners of community development projects must equip themselves with the basic skills of project implementation and focus more on practical approaches
-Major Islamic organizations should network and co-ordinate among themselves to create better synergy in intervention strategies and establishment of a regulatory agency to assess the activities of preachers before they are certified
-A girl’s level of maturity and education is the key factor in marriage rather than the age
-Families should focus on early Islamic childhood care and education to curb excessive exposure to social media sites.