Effectiveness of Gender Responsive Labour Migration Governance for Employers and Workers Representatives in Nigeria Improved through ILO Support.

The International Labour Organization (ILO), through the FAIRWAY Programme, continues to provide targeted support to national stakeholders to improve gender-responsive labour migration governance in Nigeria. In this regard, capacity-building workshops were facilitated for employers’ and workers’ representatives under the aegis of the Nigeria Employers Consultative Association (NECA) and the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), respectively.

The workshops were convened in Lagos and Kano states in March 2024, and among other objectives, were designed to sensitize employers’ and workers’ organizations on gender-related concepts, including normative provisions of gender as contained in the revised National Policy on Labour Migration, capacitate Migrant Recruitment Advisors on gender mainstreaming, and identify sustainability strategies.

In 2023, the Government of Nigeria launched a revised National Policy on Labour Migration, which notably includes a gender component. With trainings conducted for staff of the Migrant Resource Centres in Lagos, Abuja and Benin City, the FAIRWAY Programme further complemented this initiative with similar trainings regarding gender-focused implementation of the Policy.
    
Dr. Vanessa Phala Moyo, Director of the ILO Abuja Country Office, who was represented at both events, reiterated the ILO’s commitment to ensuring that social partners are adequately capacitated for effective engagement. She commended the collaborative efforts of all national stakeholders, emphasizing their shared responsibility in scaling up engagement in this area, especially in improving safeguard mechanisms available to all workers, including migrant workers.

In their remarks at both workshops, Mr. Adewale-Smatt Oyerinde, Director-General, NECA and Comrade Ismail Bello, Acting General Secretary, NLC, who were represented by Ms. Isabella Usen, and Mrs. Rita Goyit respectively, acknowledged the crucial role of capacity development in the area of gender and labour migration governance in the evolving world of work. They commended ILO’s support in this area, especially with regard to improving knowledge of gender-related concepts, in addition to support for integrating sustainability models.  

Further conceptualized to ensure that the action plan being developed by the Labour Migration Advisory Committee for Employers (LMACE) is also gender-responsive, this stream of work proved instrumental and valuable to promoting concepts on the subject matter as an enabler in safeguarding migrant workers’ rights.

Participants gained new insights, tools, and strategies for integrating gender considerations into their work and expressed commitment to advancing gender approaches in future engagement both within and outside their sectors. In both locations, 28 male and 30 female participants were reached during this stream of the work by the Programme.

ILO continues to support efforts needed to ensure sustained progress toward achieving gender transformative programming in labour migration governance, such as support provided to the Government in integrating a gender component into the revised National Policy on Labour Migration, development of a Gender Mainstreaming Strategy for the International Labour Migration Division of the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment, and development of a gender-responsive action plan for the Labour Migration Advisory Committee for Employers (LMACE).