Gender Auditing Identifies As Veritable Tool for Closure of Gender Gaps

                       
                                
Gender Auditing has been identified as a participatory audit process and a relevant
tool in closing the gender gaps in government institutions and the private
sector in order to ensure equitable distribution of resources in the society.

Speaking during a gender Auditing Validation Summit held
recently in Awka, by Development in Practice (DIP), a development management
organization and national gender partner on the Voice to the People (V2P)
Program, the Chief Executive Officer of the organization, Mrs. Ojobo Atuluke,
noted that Gender Auditing is a tool for institutional action planning,
responsive programming for Women empowerment and determining the level of
Progress in gender equality in such organizations.

Mrs. Atuluke who was represented by the DIP Executive
Assistant, Amaoge Anyaegbu informed the gathering that the Voice to the People
(V2P) Project is a Christian Aid led, DFID funded programme that aims at
supporting vulnerable communities to hold states and local government and their
leaders accountable as well as take part in the decision making that affects
their lives and raise their voice to demand the rights and services to which
they are entitled.

Mrs. Atuluke also said that DIP as a gender partner aims at
increasing representation and participation of women and adolescent girls in
the informal and formal decision making process in Anambra state hence her
reason for assessing the gender positive disposition of its V2P and non- V2P
Partners in order to help them to identify the obstacles to gender mainstreaming and recommend ways to improve gender equality
and enable women’s improved position.

She intimated the summit was organized to enable the audited organizations find out their level of gender responsiveness so as to fashion out means of improving
administratively and also allow a cross- fertilization of ideas among them.
While presenting a paper on the Overview of Gender Audit, the Gender Technical Assistant, Development in Practice (DIP), Tochi Ibeh said that embarking on the Gender Auditing Process helped organizations identify their strengths and
challenges  and how to incorporate genderin organizational systems, programmes and projects.
She said
that in executing Gender Auditing, questionnaires are distributed to the
participating organizations and a focus Group Discussion (FGD) conducted among
them to instill fairness, accountability, trust, efficiency and confidence as
well elicit experience sharing among them.
In an
interview, Programme Analyst , Development in Practice (DIP), Mr. Agada Abbah,
, noted that since government is supposed to be a driver of gender in the
society, it is hoped that the Gender Audit process shall be taken to them to
facilitate adequate and proper participatory budgeting and its eventual judicious
implementation in a multi-sectoral approach pointing out that Gender Audit assesses
the resources allocated and spent as well as bring about a balance in human
resource distribution in both government and public offices.
Mr. Agadah also expressed joy at the impact of the Gender Auditing Programme on the participating organizations notwithstanding the challenges basically posed by time constraint.
In his speech one of the participants, and the Project Manager, Justice Development and Peace Commission, JDPC, Mr. Uche Madubuko, expressed happiness at the great progress the programme made on his organization describing Gender Auditing as a social evaluation on the progressiveness and awareness creation on of gender sensitive programming as a catalyst for societal development.

He noted that emphasis is being placed on engaging women in organizational development and stated that success is being recorded in the state because women are being integrated into the policy making and leadership of both traditional and
government institutions saying that gender audit will help to ascertain the
impact of democracy dividend on women, girl child, the disabled among others.

Another participant, the Director of Women Action Committee, Prof. Mercy Anagbogu, said thanked Development in Practice (DIP) and other organizations which helped in giving them the opportunity to learn new ideas that will help in developing their organizations.

The programme was a part of the Voice to the People (V2P) Project of the Christian Aid (CA) supported by the UK DFID and implemented by 6 partners in Nigeria including Development In Practice (Dip), Justice Development and Peace Commission, Awka, Justice Development and Peace Commission, Onitsha, Justice Development and Peace Commission, Nnewi, Civil Rights Concern (CRC) and Centre for Leadership Strategy and Advocacy Development (Centre LSD).

 By Abuchi Onwumelu