The 2023 Global Gender Gap Index released by the World Economic Forum places Nigeria in 130th position out of 146 countries, making it one of the most challenging countries for women global.

This year, the International Women’s Day theme, Inspire Inclusion, calls for women to be empowered and given more opportunities in education, governance, entrepreneurship and in the society.

To commemorate this year’s theme, Inspire Inclusion, a media roundtable was organized in some of our project states to put forward our interventions and discuss on topics that Inspire Inclusion for women.

At the APIN head office, we had interactions with men and women of the press to showcase our women-focused interventions that Inspire Inclusion like the NO MEANS NO program where young girls are taught to protect themselves against gender based violence, the Family matters Programme (FMP) where family members are mentored and address some of the challenges faced by their girl child, the PMTCT program where pregnant positive mothers are linked to care in order to prevent a mother to child transmission of HIV, the Undetectable equals Untransmittable (U=U) program and so on.

In Makurdi, our Benue State Team in collaboration with Benue State Ministry of Women Affairs also organized a Media round table, showcasing her GBV response while addressing harmful gender norms that negatively impact gender and inclusivity at the community level. APIN used the platform to award 5 outstanding Mentor mothers in the state for their dedication to work and valuable contributions to the HIV response especially prevention of mother to child transmission of the virus.

Still on Benue state, we were greatly pleased to have the wife of the Deputy governor of Benue State, Mrs. Christie Ode, invite APIN to her roundtable discussions where she spoke about the importance of women supporting each other to foster inclusion and unity. In attendance was also the wife of the Speaker of the Benue House of Assembly, Mrs. Cynthia Dajo, the Benue State Honorable Commissioner for Women Affairs, Mrs. Ann Itodo, as well as other key stakeholders from different MDAs and women-focused CBOs.

We hope this year’s theme really do inspire inclusion and breaks some of the stereotypes that women have to deal with in their everyday lives, and to remind the world that women are capable of doing amazing things if they are given seats at the table!

Happy International Women’s Day!

APIN Public Health Initiatives celebrate every woman in APIN and to the rest of the world!