|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Governor Ayade of Cross River State
By Akpan David, Calabar
As Governor Ben Ayade prepares to announce the Cross River State budget for 2022 in the ensuing week, critical stakeholders have called on the Government to ensure it is a budget that will ensure gender responsiveness.
This desire was expressed during a 3-day capaciity building training on gender budgeting for selected state Ministries, Departments and Agencies.
The event was attended by government staff, budgeting experts, women’s rights groups.
Chairperson of Network To Curb Sexual Abuse (NETCUSA) which facilitates the training, Comrade Ukeme Ekong said it was important for stakeholders to brainstorm and make inputs into the upcoming budget, adding that, for them in the gender issues sector, budgeting should be all encompassing.
Also speaking at the event, Commie Ikpeme, programme officer of Girls’ Power Initiative (GPI), said budgeting should have the girl children in focus.
She maintained that girl children are very vulnerable to assaults and sexual violence, and many of them are neglected by parents and guardians.
From Budget Transparency International, a resource person, Kingsley Eworo said it was important for the citizens to take interest in the way a given budget performs because it is a very important public document next to the constitution.
“Budget is a social, legal and planning tool of Government where funds are allocated to public projects. All are entitled to access and monitor it to know how well funds allocated to their projects are expended…”
Parts of the communique releases at the end of the training demanded that Gender desk officers should be trained and oriented to ensure smart budget input.
“Gender desk officers should synergie with the department of Budget, monitoring and evaluation for mutual benefits.
Budget process is transparent and inclusive to allow maximum participation by stakeholders especially Gender desk officers in MDAs. Budgets are streamlined to meet international best standards to attract foreign support.”
The forum called for drastic action to be taken by the state government to address the dwindling man power in the health sector in view of the potential risk to the health of women and girls.
They also insisted that concerted efforts should be directed to improve the sanitation and hygiene status of MDAs to ensure conformity with global best practices.
The training said iimplementation of the social security programme should be made to be gender friendly.
