Nigerian NGOs Demand Gender Justice in International Trade

Nigerian NGOs and women’s groups have stated that the wholesale embrace of trade liberalization by Nigeria and other West African countries is impacting adversely on the poorest constituencies, especially women and rural people. This was part of the conclusions reached by representatives of over thirty organizations drawn from various parts of Nigeria at an Alliance Building and Strategy Development meeting on gender and international trade. The meeting, which was held at Excellence Hotel, Ogba, Lagos on June 15-16, 2006 was organized by Gender and Development Action (GADA), with support from the Open Society Initiative of West Africa (OSIWA). The meeting was aimed at mapping the involvement of Nigerian CSOs in the gender dimensions of economic justice issues, especially international trade. It also aimed at building a loose coalition of committed groups and developing a strategy by which they would collectively influence trade policies from a gender perspective as well as progressively track the differential impacts of trade liberalization on women and men in Nigeria. Director of GADA, Ada Agina-Ude stated: “GADA as an organization is concerned about the worsening level of poverty among women. Despite various poverty reduction efforts from government and civil society, poverty seems to be insurmountable. This is in spite of the liberalization of trade at the regional and international levels in the context of economic reforms. A deeper look reveals that women and men do not have an equal playing field in the international and local trade arenas.” She noted that “while international trade could be a tool for poverty reduction and wealth creation, our experience in this part of the world has been one of deepening poverty for women producers and their families as a consequence of trade liberalization. It is imperative for us as civil society to have a common voice in the struggle to spread trade gains more equitably between women and men as well as between developing and developed countries. We need to step up awareness on the dangers of wholesale trade liberalization. We need to examine the impacts of trade policy on women and develop effective advocacy instruments with which we can influence trade policies so that women could benefit more from trade opportunities”. Tijah Bolton-Akpan, GADA Programme Officer asked: “Nigeria has been a member of the World Trade Organisation since 1995 but what do we have to show for it in terms of trade gains”? He stated further: “As if the unfair terms of trade in the WTO and its so-called Doha Development Round is not enough, our government seems bent on entering new bilateral and plurilateral trade pacts, especially with the US and the EU, under terms that have been rejected even under the WTO. This is unacceptable in the context of poverty reduction and efforts to achieve the MDGs because such terms are further undermining the capacity of our local producers, particularly women, to compete and trade themselves out of poverty.”