The Kaduna Public Procurement Authority (KADPPA), in collaboration with UN Women has sensitised procurement officers from 21 MDAs and other stakeholders in the state on Gender-Responsive Procurement in a two-day workshop.
The workshop was a part of the Authority’s effort to promote practices that would improve the degree to which procurement processes are gender-responsive to achieve great socioeconomic change for women in the state.
At the workshop, UN Women official Patience Ekechukwu enlightened participants on key gender concepts, and the justification for mainstreaming gender into institutional policies/programmes. According to her, understanding gender concepts and terms would aid procurement officers in ensuring a fair play when carrying out their jobs.
Another UN Women official, Dr. Chukwuemeka Onyimadu, spoke on Affirmative Procurement, and listed obstacles to women accessing opportunities in public procurement in Nigeria. Noting that only 1% of public contracts go to women-owned businesses, Dr. Onyimadu expressed his desire to see an increase in women’s access to public procurement in Kaduna from 1% to 5%.
Participants, through a brainstorming session, developed the Action Plan that would guide Women Economic Empowerment through Affirmative Procurement practice in the state.
The Focal Person of the UNWomen project in Kaduna, Engineer Suleiman Abba, hailed the gender-responsive project as a welcome reform in public procurement processes to make it fair, more transparent, and all inclusive.
