Assessment of the Levels of Gender Mainstreaming and Women Participation in Yobe State, Nigeria

In both developed and developing countries, there are political, social and economic participation at all levels. The essence of it is to seek control, acquisition and dispensing of leadership power to organized society. It is also aimed at harnessing and distributing fair and equitable resource as well as to influence decision making. Women are compounded and enforced by custom, tradition norms, values practice, belief and laws behind which stood the coercive force of the state. It was against this development that Nigeria in 2006 lunch a National Gender Policy on women and gender equality aimed to promote the contribution of women to develop at micro and macro levels to reduce dependency ratios within family. Therefore, the fundamental objective of this study focus to assess the effects of National Gender Policy and its implication on women development in Yobe state. Both primary and secondary data was used, survey research design was adopted while 342 respondents were selected from various women groups as sample of the study and questionnaire were distributed to selected women groups, government agencies (MWASD) and Non-governmental (NGOs) in three selected Local government Areas of senatorial zones in Yobe state. Using simple random sampling techniques, Validity and reliability test were conducted and the variables have correlation- coefficient values of 0.5 which is found to be reliable. The data collected were analyzed using frequency percentage, pair t-test and multiple regression was used. The study recorded a positive and significant effects of cultural practice on women development, gender mainstreaming on women participation in public sectors and women level of education on National Gender Policy on Women development. It was recommended that federal and states government have to give priority to cultural practice, Gender mainstreaming and women participation in public sector and women level of education.

Keywords: Gender Policy, Implication, Women and Development.