Indeed! Windows Can Regain their Lost Verve

The continued plight of widows globally undermine the realisation of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) numbers one, three and eight, which seek to end poverty, promote gender equality and engender global partnership. Most widows, continue to live below poverty line, suffer gender discrimination and neglect by government, civil society organisations and the communities they live in.

 If progress is to be made towards actualising these MDGs by 2015, experts say it is imperative to create and implement urgently, comprehensive interventions on widows’ issues globally. This urgency is aptly captured by the statement contained in the UN.Org website which was made by Ban Ki-Moon, the UN Secretary General to commemorate the inaugural international widows’ day held June 23, 2011. He said “We must recognise the important contribution of widows, and we must ensure that they enjoy the rights and social protection they deserve. D*ath is inevitable, but we can reduce the suffering that widows endure by raising their status and helping them in their hour of need. This will contribute to promoting the full and equal participation of all women in society.

 And that will bring us closer to ending poverty and promoting peace around the world…” Available UN statistics contained in ‘Women 2000,’ a UN report of December 2011 and also published in the UN.Org website published by the UN Division for the advancement of Women to promote the goals of the Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action indicates that widows comprise a significant proportion of the population of the world women ranging from seven to 16 per cent of all adult women. The report also suggests that widows worldwide constitute the greatest percentage of the poorest of the poor as a low literacy or a lack of education. The report also indicates that widows far outnumber widowers globally. It also points out that there are more elderly widows in developed countries, while there are younger widows in developing countries. This is attributable to the high incidence of armed conflict, HIV/AIDS and poverty in the developing countries of Africa including Nigeria.

 There are efforts internationally to intervene on widowhood issues, but these amounts to a drop in the ocean compared to the weight of the issue. Key actors for widows’ welfare in Nigeria include the Federal/States Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development, the church, civil society and private initiatives. However, a lot of these actions are ad hoc in nature and lack coherent and sustainability elements hence, the need for comprehensive and sustained interventions. Like every other part of the world or Nigeria, Cross River State has its own share of widows. Over the years, the wife of the state governor, Mrs. Obioma Liyel Imoke has been planning an intervention that will be massive and sustaining in alleviating the plight of widows in the state.

 After making huge success of POWER—Partnership, Opportunities for Women’s Empowerment Realisation, a non-governmental founded by her, Mrs. Liyel-Imoke will today in Calabar inaugurate a project that will tend to improve the quality of life of widows in Cross River State. POWER worked in partnership with the state Ministry of Women Affairs. According to Mrs. Liyel Imoke, the objectives of GLOW (Giving Life Options to Widows) is to enhanced the livelihood options for 1,980 widows from the 18 LGAs of Cross River State through access to skills training, micro finance and micro enterprise services by 2015. She told Our correspondent that the project will employ research as a key tool for validating the status of widows as well as in determining project benchmarks. 

A review/analysis of existing secondary data will be done in addition to the collection/analysis of primary data to determine the needs and establish a baseline for targeted widows. “A key approach of the project will be to network. The project will outsource micro finance/micro enterprise development services to organisations with core competencies, media and advocacy campaigns will be used to sensitise policy makers and influence policy changes,” she emphasised. To enhance sustainability of the project, implementation will be phased; starting with a pilot to a scale up phase to ensure the methodology is tested for best result and best practices in the scale up phase. To enhance sustainability of the project, there will be use of group lending (Grameen Bank model) for the micro finance component of the project to ensure high repayment rate. In addition, cooperatives will be strengthened and strong partnerships/collaborations supported.

 At the end of the day there would be increased cooperation between and among widows and widows-focused organisations in the 18 LGAs of the State through formation of widows’ cooperatives and networking; there would be body of knowledge for key stakeholders on widowhood issues in the 18 LGAs of Cross River State through research as well as increased public awareness on widowhood issues in Cross River State through information, education and communication (IEC) activities. It’s expected that by 2015 there would be an enabling policy environment for widows in Cross River State through an advocacy campaign targeted at policy makers as well as enhanced capacity for 1,980 widows and 21 widows focused CBOs/NGOs in Cross River State through trainings, mentoring, counseling and accompaniment support. According to Mrs. Liyel Imoke, the primary stakeholders/main target groups for GLOW are/is the illiterate widows who lack sustainable means of livelihood. 

The secondary target includes widows who have businesses which support their basic needs, but lack an independent business capital from family welfare and are therefore unable to support children’s education or other needs without the business suffering a setback, while the tertiary group includes widows who have stable businesses, have a separate welfare purse from their business capital and are able to meet all their needs without the business being affected adversely. “The impact of the project shall be based on a gender livelihood needs model which identifies three levels of needs-- the need for survival, stability and growth. The survival level widows are those who have no means of livelihood and cannot support their basic needs of food, clothing and shelter. For this category, healthcare and support for children’s education are unaffordable. 

The need for stability and the second category includes widows who have a means of livelihood and can meet their basic needs, but are not able to stabilise their businesses due to lack of a separation between business capital and welfare purse. Welfare needs can eat into the business capital and cause a major setback. “The third category includes widows who have stable businesses, have a separate business capital from welfare purse and can meet their welfare and business needs without any suffering. This category seeks expansion or diversification of their businesses. All livelihood options will be geared towards moving the widows from the level where they are to the next level. However, priority will be given to widows at the survival level, while the economic benchmarks will be set at the beginning of the project to assess the extent to which widows have moved up from the base.

 For example, baseline will be established on level of income of selected widows at the beginning of the project and monitored over the life of the project to assess the growth,” Mrs Liyel Imoke who has made success with the POWER and Destiny Child projects in the past said She explained that the GLOW project will be implemented by POWER and will work in partnership with the state Ministry of Women Affairs. There will be a GLOW project team to manage the day to day activities of the project. In addition there will also be a project support committee to mobilise stakeholders support towards project implementation.

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