Women Empowerment Programmes Toward Sustainable Development in Nigeria Challenges and Policy Options

Keneth Mela, Amanda Paul & Lydia Yakubu

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Abstract

Women play a significant role in sustainable development around the world, yet they often face unique challenges that limit their potential and impact. Globally, women make up almost half of the agricultural workforce, and their contributions are critical to food production and rural development. Developing countries are not left out. However, in Nigeria, women have less access to resources and services than men, and their participation in the sector is often limited by cultural and social norms. These challenges not only affect individual women, but also have broader economic, social, and environmental consequences. Invariably, to assess the correlation between women’s empowerment and sustainable development, the study employed the qualitative research method. Hence, it relied on books, scholarly journals, articles, and seminar papers. Central to the finding of the study is that there have been numerous programmes that aimed at empowering women thereby promoting sustainable development among which include: The Women in Agriculture Program (WAEP), the Women Agripreneurship Development Program (WADP), the Women’s Rights to Property initiative (WRPI), and the Agriculture and Gender Empowerment strategy (AGES) inter alia but their success was never encouraging due to poor programme implementation. The study also identified lack of continuity, illiteracy, and corruption, among other factors, as the main challenges confronting women empowerment programmes toward sustainable development in Nigeria. The paper recommended the development of multi-sectoral approaches that bring together different government agencies and departments to work together on issues related to women empowerment programmes.

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