Ms Ulla Mueller, the Country Representative of UN Population Fund (UNFPA) in Nigeria has restated the commitment of the fund toward improving core programming abilities of its partners through capacity building, training and workshop.
Mueller made the position of the fund known while declaring open a two-day capacity building training of the Spotlight Initiative Implementing Partners on “Results-Based Implementation, Monitoring and Reporting” in Abuja on Tuesday.
Represented by Mr Osaretin Adonri, the UNFPA Assistant Representative, Mueller said “as indicated by the title of this workshop, we hope to improve our partners’ core programming abilities.
“This will be useful not only within the Spotlight Initiative or UNFPA, but into other engagements of your various institutions.
”The country representative, who asserted that training was a long tradition of UNFPA, noted that capacity building was in line with global standards, as projects were designed around impact and results, rather than outputs as previously practiced.
She added that the implementation of the Spotlight Initiative project of the European Union (EU) and the United Nations (UN) would be guided by collective expected impact to ensure that women and girls were free from all forms of violence.
She expressed optimism that the workshop would bring new insights, through collective exchange of experiences aimed at achieving the goal of eliminating Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG).
Mr Yinka Akibu, the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Specialist for the EU-UN Spotlight Initiative in his presentation on “Overview of the Spotlight Initiative” emphasised prevention as central component of the project, noting that it was a global move to end all forms of violence against women and girls.
He explained that the initiative, a multi-year partnership between the EU and UN with an initial investment of 500 million Euro, is targetting Africa, Asia, Caribbean, Latin America and Pacific.
He noted that the project is being implemented at both federal and state levels, with Adamawa, Sokoto, Ebonyi, Cross River, Lagos and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) as focus states for now, stressing that “the most marginalised will be targeted to ensure that no one is left behind.”
He listed the six mutually reinforcing pillars of the Spotlight Initiative project as; laws and policies, institutions, prevention, services, data and women’s movement.
He said “the Spotlight Initiative responds to all forms of violence against women and girls, with a particular focus on sexual and gender based violence and harmful practices.
“The initiative is so named as it brings focused attention to this issue, moving it into the spotlight and placing it at the centre of efforts to achieve gender equality and women’s empowerment.
“It is the world’s largest targeted effort to end all forms of violence against women and girls.” (NAN)
