Four Female Journalists have won awards for writing the best Women Economic Empowerment (WEE) feature stories.
The competition organised by the Development Research and Projects Centre (dRPC) and sponsored By the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation received 12 articles on Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) issues of which four reports were adjudged the best.
In the Print and Online category, Tina Abeku of Guardian Newspaper with the article “Knocks over poor access to Nigeria’s N154bn WEE interventions” came first while Grace Obike of The Nation Newspaper came second with the article “Ogbonge women: lending to transform women’s lives” They, alongside Victoria Onehi, were the winners in the Print and Online category.
A Senior Reporter with the 120edgenews, an Online News Platform, Victoria Onehis article, ”220Bn MSMEDF: Assessing disbursements to women based on CBN’s 60:40 ratios” came third.
In the broadcast category, Temitope Mustapha of Voice of Nigeria (VON) with the story “What a man can do a woman can do better”which was the only entry for broadcast got the award. The awardees all got Cash Prizes as well as certificates.
While presenting the awards to them, the National President of the Nigeria Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ) Mrs Ladi Bala, who was represented by Glory Ohagwu of Voice of Nigeria, said the awardees had put in their best to come up with the reports. She enjoined them to keep doing more investigative Women Economic Empowerment (WEE) stories to help liberate women from poverty in the long -run.
The Director, Communications and Partnerships, dRPC Mallam Hassan A. Karofi, said the Centre came up with the competition to encourage more journalists reporting on Gender to bring issues of Women’s Economic Empowerment to the fore.
At the award ceremony held on Tuesday in Abuja alongside the launching of the Monitoring and Evaluation WEE Framework by the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning and NIPSS, the Director of Projects, dRPC Dr Stanley Ukpai, said the Centre is trying to create a synergy within MDAs on their programmes, policies and budget on WEE.
“We want MDAs to take this document and run with the framework launched today and make sure that every MDA has a component that looks at monitoring and evaluation. That way, we can evaluate what impact these programmes and policies are having on Nigerian Women,” Ukpai said.
Presenting the Results Framework and Monitoring Plan, the Director, National Monitoring and Evaluation Department, Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Dr Zakari Lawal said 0.4 per cent of the total annual budget was allocated for WEE Projects.
However, while launching the Monitoring and Evaluation Framework for the Implementation of the Women’s Economic Empowerment Policies, the Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Prince Clem Agba, said the Government is prioritising the advancement of women in all spheres of society and specifically in areas relating to their socio-economic empowerment.
“I do not doubt that, if properly implemented, the WEE Monitoring and Evaluation Framework will contribute immensely to supporting effective data gathering on WEE Initiatives of the Government in a manner that will help the government take informed decisions and actions that will support the holistic development of the country as envisaged by the government plans,” the Minister said.
