The lobby and advocacy group had been in existence for over 15 years revolving around advocating for women and girls in only 4 States in Nigeria. 100 Women Lobby Group is a platform under Change Managers International Network (which serves as the National Secretariat). When there was no support from funders, the Women advocacy group focused on National level advocacy, policy engagement and interventions with only about 60 active members. The Group was only able to carry out an activity after taxing the members who were getting fed up with such strategy as many were not buoyant enough to even continue. This situation did not allow for the purpose of the group to thrive as expected.
The WVL project has become very instrumental to the successful changes recorded in the 100 Women Lobby Group since the project inception. The project is a pivotal force in the structural improvement experienced by the 100 Women National Secretariat with a structured Board which was non-existence and built capacity of its staff, it’s members across Nigeria and the policy engagement in Universities’ Centre for Gender Studies, Ministries, Departments and Agencies and the National Assembly. Today the group has presence in 36 States and the Federal Capital Territory with over 3000 members and have reached about 10 million Women and Girls. Through trainings, dialogue, community engagement, campaign and diverse advocacy visits, more women were visibly active in the political process as voters, advocates and bold peer influencers across Nigeria.
We now have a vibrant secretariat, regular meetings with all State coordinators and have had several virtual trainings for all members stepping down trainings, ideas strategies on how to respond to enquiries. We also have other funders such as MacArthur Foundation, and World Bank. There is a high maintenance of Whatsapp platforms at State and Zonal levels with Ogun State maintaining such links at Local Government levels.
With the WVL Project having built the capacity of the group there were more women who scaled through the primaries in the new political parties and also more women at the State House of Assemblies across the country. This was due to the contributory and consistent work of our members across Nigeria through WVL Project. Many States also had at least one or two women in their State Assembles in the North Central, North East, South East, South South and South West. The North West zone recorded only a female in the Kaduna State House of Assembly despite the rise in awareness as driven by our women.
‘’We are now better well known for responding to and influencing policy issues, with the three arms of government [Executive, Judiciary and the Legislature] at National, State and Local Government levels ’’. – According to the National Coordinator, 100 Women Lobby Group
