The Deputy Team Lead, Strengthening Peace and Resilience in Nigeria (SPRiNG), Priscilla Ankut, has urged member states of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to revise and strengthen the 2005 ECOWAS gender policy to reflect current realities.
She also urged member states to integrate gender-responsive justice reform and establish a regional results and accountability framework.
Ankut said this in a presentation made at a conference to mark ECOWAS at 50 with the theme: “ECOWAS Legal and Policy Instruments on Women and Gender Equality: Progress and Challenges” organised by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation West Africa.
She also urged member states to leverage ECOWAS gender instruments to develop national legal aid systems, strengthen gender desks within justice institutions, and ensure gender-sensitive training for judicial officers.
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Ankut, a lawyer, urged ECOWAS members to invest in women’s economic empowerment and legal literacy, noting that economic autonomy enhances women’s ability to seek justice and challenge discrimination.
She said: “ECOWAS has built a solid and progressive normative foundation for promoting women’s rights and gender equality through its legal, policy, and institutional instruments. However, the true measure of success lies in how these frameworks transform lives on the ground.
“To achieve this, member states must move from policy intent to practical implementation — ensuring that every woman and girl in West Africa can access justice, participate equally, and live free from discrimination and violence.
“This calls for renewed political will, adequate resources, and collective action from governments, civil society, and regional bodies to close the gender gap and advance sustainable development in our region.”
Programme Manager, Rosa Luxemburg Foundation West Africa, Angela Odah called for increased access to justice in the region, especially for women and girls.
She said: “There should be increase to access to justice in the region, especially for women and girls. To increase access to justice people needs to know what the laws are. If you don’t know that your rights are being violated, how do you go about fighting for them? Education of the populace about the laws, what it contains and ensuring that people are held accountable.”
She added: “The objective is to ensure that we have a systematic approach, and consistent efforts are made to educate stakeholders in the society about the conditions that affect women.
“Women face different challenges, but the reality is that because of the patriarchal society that we have across Africa and the world at large, no matter what social status a woman occupies you still have challenges that you have to deal with by the mere fact that you are a woman.
“We have a patriarchal society that prioritises everything for men. Men have all the privileges politically, socially, culturally. The reality is that a consistent effort has to be made to educate people about the value of educating the girl – child, ensuring that both girls and boys are able to go to school, working towards addressing the challenges that girls might face that will withhold them back. It is a consistent effort.”