W’Bank Raises Funding for Adolescent Girls’ Empowerment to $12,000,000, to Cover 10 More States

•Tallen unveils pink traders’ fair

Kuni Tyessi in Abuja

The World Bank has upscaled funding for Adolescent Girls’ Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE) to $12,000,000, an additional boost of $7,000,000 from the initial funds provided by the multilateral institution.

This was revealed yesterday, when the World Bank Task Team for AGILE Project of 10 persons led by a Senior Education Officer with bank, Aisha Garba, paid the Minister of Women Affairs, Pauline Tallen, a courtesy visit in her office.

In a statement signed by the Ministry’s Director of Media and Publicity, Olujimi Oyetomi, Garba had in her presentation to the minister, disclose that $7,000,000 was being added to the initial fund of $5,000,0000 whose disbursement mechanism had been from July 28, 2020, when the project was approved, to the closing of the First disbursement in July 31, 2025.

She said the AGILE funding disbursement had been to create safe and assessable learning spaces, fostering an enabling environment for girls (US&140M); and Project management and system strengthening (US &35M) with substantially encouraging results from its application.

She noted that additional financing to the tune of $700 million for scaling up the AGILE Project was predicated upon government’s demand, commitment and alignment with the World Bank agenda; persistence of challenges in educating adolescent girls; and the need to scale impact and expand target group.

In addition, she stated that additional states to benefit from the scale-up programme, have followed some selection criteria which she listed to include: “Technical eligibility where Female gross enrolment rate in school, ages 12 – 19 should be less than 70 per cent; while Adolescent fertility rate (ages 15 – 19) should be greater than 70 per 1,000 women.

“Demonstrated commitment in domesticating Child Rights Act (2003), state should score 50 per cent; domesticating National Policy on Gender in Education (2021), state should score 25 per cent; existence of programmes/policies on girls’ education, state should score 25 per cent.

“Implementation readiness: state should have costed action plan for teacher recruitment/committed letter to recruit teachers for schools that will be built; state should have school security action plan aligned with the National Policy on Safety, Security and Violence-Free Schools in 2021 and there should be state Project Implementation Unit constituted and allocation of not less than N150 million to fund project take off preparatory activities,” she added.

In her response, Tallen said she sees something amiss with the situation where budgeted funds for Girl-child education was domiciled in the Federal Ministry of Education whereas it is the Ministry of Women Affairs that carries out the advocacy to drive, not just enrolment, but completion of education to Senior Secondary School Class 3 (SS3) by every adolescent Girl-child. 

Tallen said this was the underlying reason why she had been advocating for a separate budget line for Girl-Child education in Federal Ministry of Women Affairs budget:

“Education of the Girl-child is our top priority, we advocate strongly for it, because as we see it, you educate a woman you have empowered the woman.

“To keep up with this kind of training institutions to benefit the Girl-child, I am also advocating for private-sector-driven support, or government pays for the training of the Girl-child while the private sector runs it,” she added.

Meanwhile, Tallen has opened the International Pink traders’ fair which is a project of Economic Services Department of Federal Ministry of Women Affairs through the 50 Million African Women Speak Project in Abuja. 

The 50 Million African Women Speak Project’ Pink Traders’ Fair was opened by the minister yesterday, at the Zoological Gardens, Area 1, Abuja, FCT and would last till Saturday, 5th of November, 2022.

While declaring the fair open, Tallen revealed the uniqueness of the fair as, “bringing together various businesses and women entrepreneurs who have gone through most of the free skill acquisition/business development trainings offered by the project by giving them a platform to showcase their goods and proficiency.”

Speaking of the 50 Million African Women Speak Project, the women affairs minister stated that it was, “practical initiatives implemented by the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the East African Community (EAC) and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) funded by African Development Bank (AfDB) to contribute to the economic and social empowerment of 50 million women in businesses across 38 African countries, by providing a digital networking platform via web and mobile devises as an App and a one stop shop for women to start, grow and scale up their businesses as well as access financial and non-financial services/information.”

The fair was meant to serve as avenue to showcase female-owned businesses and several of the programmes being implemented by the Ministry in empowering Nigerian women economically.