ActionAid Nigeria has launched the Renewed Women’s Voice and Leadership (RWVL) initiative in Nigeria, a five-year project, supported by the Canadian government with a $15.75 million grant for strengthening women’s leadership and rights by supporting women’s rights organisations and fostering strategic partnerships across Nigeria.
Blueprint reports that key goals of the initiative, is the second phase of the five-year Women’s Voice and Leadership (WVL) which ended in 2024, included promoting gender equality, combating gender-based violence, and amplifying the voices of women, including those with disabilities and the poor and excluded.
The initiative seeks to consolidate gains in women’s rights and ensure sustained impact through funding and capacity development for 188 women’s organisations and projects.
Speaking during the launching with the theme: ‘Consolidating Gains and Strategic Partnerships for Sustained Impact’, ActionAid Nigeria’s Country Director, Andrew Mamedu, stated: “In the next five years, hold us accountable. We plan to reach 2.7 million women indirectly and 350,000 directly through the support of 188 women-led organisations working at community, local government, and state levels.”
Mamedu said while the project would focus on eight states, other innovation funds will cover nationwide interventions, pointing out: “But there are other strategic opportunity funds or innovation funds, those ones will be run across the 36 states.”
He explained that the project would also target women with disability, the poor and excluded, women that are facing gender-based violence, women that are getting into politics, women in leadership position, women that are trying to improve their livelihood, women facing one form of discrimination.
The country director further disclosed that ActionAid would collaborate broadly with stakeholders to ensure impact, stressing that: “As ActionAid we will work with all stakeholders, governments, the state governments, the federal government, Ministry of Women Affairs, agencies, departments that are relevant for this, and of course development partners as well to get these results that we assume.”
Also speaking at the project’s launch in Abuja, the Canadian High Commissioner to Nigeria, Pasquale Salvaggio, reaffirmed Canada’s commitment to gender equality, stating: “We are absolutely delighted to support this new initiative that demonstrates Canada’s commitment to gender equality in Nigeria. We are pleased to have so many allies and champions with us today as we work together to advance these goals.”
On why support for women’s rights organisations in Nigeria was essential, Salvaggio said, “It matters because Nigerian women and girls are the drivers of change in their communities, they are entrepreneurs and educators, health workers and human rights defenders, policy advocates and peace builders.”
The Project Coordinator, RWVL, Niri Goyit, commended the federal and state fovernments for paying greater attention to women’s issues, noting that sustainable gender equality must begin at the community level.
In an interview with journalists, National President, Nigeria Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ), one of the RWVL partners, Hajiya Aisha Ibrahim, noted that the initiative had yielded positive results and
reaffirmed the Association’s commitment to amplifying women’s voices.