Effective Implementation of Gender and Development Policy in a Public Tertiary Health Institution in Maiduguri, Borno State, Nigeria

Abstract

The global introduction of the millennium Development Goals has drawn National attentions to pursuing gender and development policies, geared towards achieving gender equality. The Nigerian government keyed into this policy, replaced the erstwhile National Policy on women adopted in the year 2000 with National gender policy in 2006 The 2006 Gender and Development Policy was reviewed in Nigeria; which led to the 2021-2026 gender and development policy. The 2021-2026 policy draws from the 2006 National Gender and development Policy whose overall goal was to provide ‘strategic policy guidance for mainstreaming gender at all levels as well as address the inequalities that exist in the socio-economic sphere, and combat all forms of violence against women and girls, among other things. The policy goal is aimed at eliminating cultural, religious gender based biases and harmful cultural and religious practices which tend to reproduce inequalities in gender roles relations in the Nigerian society and thereby giving a subordinate status to women compared to men. Hence, development opportunities continue to elude women since the policy failed to challenge the structure which reproduces gender inequality and overall disempowerment of women. This study therefore examined effective implementation of gender and development policy in public health institutions in Nigeria. It is clear that implementation of gender and development policy is not effective and contrary to expectation. With the new and revised policy in place, the Nigerian government can learn from the previous policies and ensure that there is clear tracking and monitoring of the impact of each of the objectives so as to fully do away with gender inequality in the country; recommendations were also made.