Nigeria

Women and girls in Nigeria face daily challenges in leading healthy, fully productive lives. Nigeria has a 40 percent rate of illiteracy among women, one of the highest infant and maternal mortality rates in the world, and the third largest number of HIV infections. And, as with any new democracy, there is tremendous opportunity to increase women’s participation and leadership in Nigeria’s governing structures. Currently, women hold only about five percent of parliamentary seats in the country.

CEDPA has worked in Nigeria since 1985 to increase support for girls’ education and empower women and their families to improve reproductive health and improve maternal health. With Nigeria’s emergence from military rule in 1999, CEDPA/Nigeria has led efforts to raise women’s political participation, leadership and governance. And, CEDPA/Nigeria has led efforts to engage faith-based organizations and cultural leaders to increase community support to confront the AIDS epidemic.

Today, CEDPA/Nigeria’s Better Life Options program works with girls, boys and their parents in Akwa Ibom State to breakdown gender stereotypes and increase support for girls’ education. The program also provides practical life skills education such as literacy and vocational training, family life education and leadership training to increase self-esteem, confidence and self-worth.

To advance reproductive and maternal health in a country where one in every thirteen women dies in childbirth, CEDPA/Nigeria leads the MacArthur Safe Motherhood Nigeria program to promote interventions to reduce barriers to safe motherhood. CEDPA’s Nigeria Family Welfare program engages families and entire communities, through religious and community leaders, to recognize the benefits of family planning and the need to meet the reproductive health needs of young people.

The Positive Living project, with support from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and the U.S. Agency for International Development, mobilizes faith-based and community organizations to strengthen and expand the delivery of HIV/AIDS services. By 2010, the project will expand gender-sensitive, community-based palliative and home-based care services to 36,000 people living with HIV/AIDS and their families; reach two million Nigerians with HIV prevention messages; provide livelihood programs; and strengthen institutional management and technical capacity of national faith-based organizations, non-governmental organizations, networks of individuals living with HIV/AIDS and other organizations.

Finally, through the Democracy and Governance program, CEDPA/Nigeria will lead voter education and training in the April 2007 presidential elections in the country. This work builds on more than a decade of efforts to increase women’s participation in decision making in Nigeria. CEDPA/Nigeria partnered with local community activists to mobilize and register more than 750,000 people to vote in the first Nigerian election in 1999, nearly a third of all the country’s voters. In 2003, CEDPA led a consortium that deployed 4,620 election monitors in 19 of Nigeria's 36 states in the 2003 elections. (Read more about the 100 Women’s Groups in Nigeria).

Over 700 Nigerian women and men have participated in CEDPA’s training programs. By partnering with these alumni, along with community and non-governmental organizations, and focusing on leadership training, social mobilization and advocacy and women's political skills, CEDPA/Nigeria empowers women to improve their lives, families and communities.