Women’s day: AGED-Network advocates women’s access to land, food security

The Africa Global Empowerment and Development Network (AGED-Network), has called for concerted effort by stakeholders to mitigate challenges faced by the women folk, particularly in Nigeria.

The President of the AGED-Network, a Non Governmental Organisation(NGO), Dr Majidadi Kontagora, made the called at a roundtable in Abuja on Monday.

He said the roundtable, which was part of activities to mark the 2021 International Women’s Day celebration, was to emphasise the need for emancipation of the girl-child.

According to him, ensuring girl-child education for instance, will help the women folk have requisite knowledge on tackling challenges they are faced with, such as non-access to land for farming among others.

“I am not happy with the way women are treated in our clime, especially in Nigeria.

“They are one of the most vulnerable set of people given the challenges they are faced with.

“It is part of our mission to harness African resources to create lasting solution to the challenge of poor education, marginalisation particularly in terms of women’s access to land, unemployment, insecurity and other challenges.

“Our vision is to create opportunities and synergies that positively transform Africa.

“We want to see women perform excellently in all spheres of life
and one of the objectives of the network is to ensure skills acquisition, to empower women to be self sufficient and to contribute to national development.

“We are working on collaborating with state governments across the country to ensure that any child of school age, particularly the girl child enrols in school.

“We will also work closely with governors to ensure that women have equal access to land, particularly for farming, in view of their contribution to food security,” he said.

Part of resolution at the roundtable, was to commit Civil Society Organisations(CSOs), the media and other stakeholders, to pledge support for women access to land.

Participants also discussed on raising awareness on disparity in women access to land and its implication for food security, with a view to getting duty bearers to commit towards ending the disparity.

They further discussed on the need to create opportunities for duty bearers to engage with those women who are engaged in the
process and who could serve as mentors and role models.

Equally, participants discussed on the need to facilitate
conversations and build constructive dialogue among relevant stakeholders and sharing of best practices on food security and access to land.

Furthermore, participants agreed that all resolutions reached would be presented to the Minister of Women Affairs for further action.