From Douglas Blessing, Port Harcourt
A lecturer at the Mass Communication Department, Rivers State University, Prof. Godwin Okon, has said that to achieve gender equality and empowerment of women and girl child, there will be need for urgent implementation of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG-5).
The SDG-5 concerns gender equality and is fifth of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals established by United Nations in 2015.
Prof Okon made the call while peaking at a training organised by the Step-Up for Women in Journalism Initiative with Support from Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ) under its Report Women programme funded by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
In his presentation on “Facilitating the Implementation of Gender policies within Newsrooms and Organisations”, Okon noted that women have made giant strides in the media and corporate circles as well.
He said, ” these settings demand great intellect which on its own speaks volumes of their intellectual capacity. The question therefore is; why the seeming obscurity of these giant strides?”
He said that studies by the United Nations and the World Bank shows that focusing on women in development assistance and poverty reduction strategies leads to faster economic growth than gender neutral approaches.
