Maimuna is a young mother in rural Northern Nigeria juggling housework, childcare, and concern for her reproductive health. She hears of a SCIDaR-supported reproductive health outreach but the sessions are far away, and no one can watch her children. She wants to learn, but simply can’t get there. The program team assumed everyone could attend but Maimuna’s reality and that of millions like her is shaped by more than gender. Where she lives, her income, age or marital status all influence her access to care. When these realities are overlooked, the people who need services the most get left behind.
That’s why gender mainstreaming is not just good practice, it is essential to ensuring women like Maimuna irrespective of their socioeconomic status is able to access healthcare whenever they need it which aligns with SCIDaR’s mission of ensuring even the poorest of the poor have access to quality and affordable healthcare. Gender Mainstreaming helps us design programs that meet real needs, improve uptake, improve outcomes and strengthen equity across our work.
Through the Sustaining Action for Gender Equality (SAGE) initiative, we have begun embedding gender responsiveness institutionally;
.A gender audit revealed key gaps in our program structure and systems and priority program teams are being supported to close the gaps.
Staff across teams were trained on the basics of gender mainstreaming ensuring that integration into design and delivery happens.
Gender focal persons were identified and are supporting implementation and monitoring.
A wellness session created space for female staff to share and recharge.
As an example, on the SPARK project, we are seeing gender mainstreaming work in action – the project’s theory of change now addresses gender related barriers, dashboards track real-time gender disaggregated data and female CRoWN ambassadors are connecting caregivers to immunization services.
In the end, this isn’t just a checklist for us, it is about ensuring that every SCIDaR project delivers transformational change, and not just technical interventions. So let’s ask ourselves;
- Who is missing from our programs?
- Are we designing with Maimuna in mind or only with average Nigerians, Nigeriens or Chadians?
- How can each of us embed fairness and equity into our daily decisions?
When we center people, not assumptions, we create programs that work for everyone including Maimuna!
Let’s keep pushing for inclusion, not as an add on but as the way we lead!
