By Etop Ekanem

The Association of Women Town Planners in Nigeria, AWTPN, Lagos branch has joined the world to mark this year’s International Women’s Day with the theme “Embrace equity through women empowerment as the ingredients needed to bridge the equity divide.”

In her welcome address, Chairman of the association, Mrs Victoria Taiwo-Ajose, called for policy and social reforms that put gender equality and sustainability at the centre of progress.

She said: “We must transform the power relations and the harmful norms, stereotype and biases that pervade and degrade our education, technology and innovations. We must move towards un-stereotypes, changing mindsets to create safe learning spaces, in  persons and online, environment suitably to showcase our ideas that not only protect girls and women from gender-based violence but propel our creativity, potential and innovation.

“We must ensure  that the education we offer girls and women truly equips them for the future. Currently, women are only 35 per cent of those in STEM education. We must do better or our world will not do better.

“And while we make progress for girls, we must not forget about the millions of adult women who have already missed out on education. They need different educational support as well as access to childcare, safe public transport, training in life skills and decent paid work.

“We gather at a time when global gender equality and women’s rights are in acute danger. Education is not only a critical tool to combat this, it is the means to fundamentally improve the lives of women, girls, families and whole communities. We must hold each other accountable for doing so and safeguard our progress.

“That is why it is my pleasure to commend today’s Call to Action and Global Platform on Gender Equality and Girls’ and Women’s Education. Taken together, they offer a transformative agenda for action, policy change, financing and bold new partnerships to transform education through an explicit gender lens. A collaborative vision to dismantle gendered barriers and place gender considerations at the heart of education.

“When we transform education, we also transform the global trajectory of gender equality. The cause is urgent. We must seize the opportunity together.”

Also speaking,  Olayemi Dickson, who was quest speaker, said in recent decades there have been calls for greater gender equality while enhancing the need to close the gender wage gap. She, however, stated that although improvements have been made in this aspect, there is still a fundamental lack of women in leadership roles, adding: “Despite small gains in recent years, statistics on women in leadership roles show that the gender gap remains.”

According to her, for women to attain and excel in leadership positions and to bridge the existing equity divided gap, empowerment is key.

She said: “For every capacity, we need to acquire capability to make decisions based on facts and principal and not emotions, We should develop ourselves emotionally in such a way that decisions are scrutinized through the fire of facts and principles to be able to make quality decisions.

“I encourage every woman to acquire knowledge through certification, professional bodies and every  necessary thing required for leadership position. We as women must acquire essential leadership skills if we are going to excel in our respective portfolios.

“The hallmark of a successful leadership is the ability to translate the competence of your followers by utilising their personality to achieve organizational goals or any collective goals.”