Peer Review Meetings in Benue State

The peer review was organised to discuss the progress made on the project, lessons learned and challenges of from Zamfara and Benue State. The meeting also created platform for peer learning on practices and strategies that can be replicated in both states to strengthen accountability to gender equality in policies, programmes and legislations. Peer Review Meeting in Benue State: During the discussions with the CSOs sub-grantees, all the sub-grantee presented their projects. During the feedback on the presentations the subgrantees were advised not to lose focus on the overall objective of the project which is ensure gender is mainstreamed in government projects. The CSOs were also advised to develop a media strategy to communicate their findings on the status of government projects with other citizens. It emphasised that social media is a strategic platform to share findings to generate public interest towards holding government accountable to projects that impact on the health, economic and overall welfare of women and person with special needs. Three areas of public financing were identified from the MDA budget allocation, Constituency projects of the parliament and Local government statutory budget allocation were identified as sources of funding for uncompleted projects. CSOs were strongly advised to continue advocating to Members of the State Parliament for gender responsive budgeting. At the community level, CSOs were advised to sensitize traditional leaders, women and youth groups on holding government to accountable to gender responsive projects. The meeting further created a forum for interagency dialogue between CSOs, Staff of the State House of Assembly and Ministries. Speaking at event the Deputy Clerk stressed the need for CSOs in the State to work closely with the Members of the State parliament towards development in the State. He said that the project strengthened the capacity of members of the parliament in mainstreaming gender in laws and other legislative processes. He pledged continues commitment to partnership with CSOs towards mainstreaming gender in the parliamentary legislative framework. The Director Ministry of Rural Development and Cooperatives in his remark disclosed the project was awaked his conciseness on gender mainstreaming in programmes. ‘’Prior to this project, I never knew there was a gender dimension to project implementation. ‘’This project has opened my eyes to understanding the gender impact of programmes’’. The representative of the Permanent Secretary in her good will message appreciated WEP and Kingdom of Netherlands, she noted that the project instigated a lot of reforms in the State Ministry of Justice. The Permanent Secretary added that the Ministry has a gender desk which was established after the project. Following session on success stories from Zamfara State, the participants disclose that the trainings on Gender , SDGs and Gender Budget Monitoring initiated reforms within their organisations. ‘’In the Ministry of Justice, we are now conscious of gender balance in our programmes females and males must be represented in any project and programmes implemented’’. The beneficiaries acquired technical skills on gender mainstreaming in their assigned duties. The Deputy Clarke said he played during the advocacies towards passing of the Violence Against Person Prohibition (VAPP) Bill he provided technical guidance to influence law makers on domestication of the law at the State level. The representative State Ministry of Rural Development and Cooperatives (SMRDC) added that the project had made him to be gender sensitive in allocation of projects implementation in communities. In the next community needs for the 2020 budget he would insist on participation of women in community needs assessments. He revealed that CSOs should advocate for inclusion of some of the project monitored into the 2019 advance is budget which designed annually and determines programmes that will be budgeted in the 2020 year. The Representative from Ministry of Justice shared her experience on VAPP Law domestication in the state and the modalities they have been exploring to make the implementation effective enough to address issues of women. Action plan was developed which entailed strategies to foster community engagement particularly with women and youths group traditional and religious leaders in the budgeting process. Strategies for further engagement were developed; follow up to ensure that the needs identified by women at the interactive meeting are included in the advanced budget by end of July 2019 for Benue State. The Ministry of Justice was advised at the Peer review meeting to strengthen partnership with the State police towards implementation of the VAPP law.