The United Nations Women Programme Coordinator, Lilian Unaegbu has said that the Search for Common Ground (SCG), a Non-Governmental Oraganisation has targeted 2,000 women for agricultural livelihood projects in Borno and Yobe. The women, who are drawn from 13 councils of Borno state and Bade council in Yobe state for the livelihoods project, are being funded and implemented by Japan and SCG. Lilian disclosed this on Monday at the official launching of Protection, Empowerment and Resilience Building (PERD) Programme at the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) press centre, Maiduguri. “This project is being implemented by SCG and Nigeria in partnership with UN Women; and it is funded by the Government of Japan,” she said. She said that the project aims to “strengthen formal and informal justice systems” that could mitigate, prevent and respond to incidents of Gender-Based Violence (GBV among the targeted women. According to her, the implementation of the project will also create socioeconomic empowerment for women and girls affected by Boko Haram insurgency. She explained: “Our approach as UN Women was to facilitate protection through empowerment of women and girls that were affected by the nine-year insurgency. On empowerment of women, Unaegbu said: “Our target is to empower 2,000 women economically and continue to support them to have a voice to better articulate their needs and priorities. “They should have better access to justice and other services. I congratulate the women and girls affected by conflict for their resilience and determination to rebuild and live better lives. We must support them to achieve this goal.” She said UN Women, are strategically positioned to build humanitarian actors’ capacity in gender mainstreaming; as well as ensuring gender issues are taken seriously. This, according to her, could provide essential lifesaving assistance to victims of Boko Haram insurgency. She added that UN Women is still convinced that ending all forms of gender-based discrimination and achieving gender equality requires the engagement of men at all levels. Such engagement, according to her, was to champion the cause of women and engage men-to-men across the board to support the advancement of women in business and politics at state and household levels.
