 I'd like to thank you both for your work and your collaboration with the public, private and social sector in Nigeria. As John said, MacArthur Foundation was the first to support our presidential anti-corruption effort and the work with us on several other governance and human capital development initiatives. And have some thank you for the invitation to participate in this conversation today. I think it's fair to say that I have a more than sentimental attachment to this very day, International Women's Day, because it also happens to be my birthday. But I'd also like to say to Hafsad and women in Africa initiative, I must not imagine that the irony of this all male panel is lost on any of us who are here on this panel. We know that women have been set up for some accountability, you know, and I think we're already given a really good account of ourselves so far. I must also bring you the warm personal greetings of my guest president, President Muhammad Buhari, on this International Women's Day. Incidentally, Mr. President enjoys the distinction of the honor of the champion of the He-For-She campaign in Nigeria that was conferred on him a couple of years ago. Indeed, as father of seven well educated and confident daughters, he really does believe that he, more than anyone else, should be a passionate advocate of gender equality. And so should I. I also have two daughters, Adama Lola and Koinsala. They're both young adults and been out of university for a while now. And they've been entrepreneurs even while they were in school. But more importantly, from the day that they were born, they could assume that they would have equal legal, social, and political status and rights as their brother and as any other male. This is so because they were born to educated and modestly, economically successful parents. I'm sure that that is the case for many of us here in this conversation and many who have daughters in this particular who are, you know, in this webinar. Our daughters are educated or being educated and can and will compete favorably with our male counterparts anywhere. They will aspire and can attain political leadership. By virtue of the privileges and circumstances of their birth, they are positioned to break the glass ceilings in commerce and the professions and politics. But the story of the daughters of those of us who are here is not the story of the large number of girls in countries all over Africa and in particular in Nigeria. Over 35% of girls on the average are illiterate. And illiteracy means that they will not find decent, well-paying jobs, that they will in many cases be married off early. Many will be discriminated against in inheritance rights or punitive widowhood practices. They will work hardest on the farms and they will work long hours in the markets but will always earn less than men. So these historical deficits ensure that women will be underrepresented in leadership as well, whether that be business or political leadership or leadership in any of the sectors, almost invariably they will be behind. But even the educated will probably several times in their working lives be subjected to one form of gender-based discrimination or the other. Many may even add to the growing statistics of victims of domestic violence. So for many generations, I think women have fought these manifestations of gender inequality and in Nigeria and in Africa in particular, you know, this has been the case too. Over time that struggle has been refined to the level of a right to gender equality. And that notion that women and men should have the same legal, social and political rights. It's this body of rights which, you know, is today described as feminism. But I think that something has changed in the past few years. Women are now saying that the fight for gender equality is not just for women and girls alone. And I think that this is the right approach. It's a fight for all of us, especially men. But the campaign is much more important in shaping the future. Men are now being challenged to stand shoulder to shoulder with women in the struggle for gender equality. And I think we're all learning that insisting on equal rights for women is an imperative of justice. And for fairness, it's an entitlement, a debt which I think generations have owed to women and girls. And it's not a gift. This is perhaps in my view, I mean, I think the realization of the imperative of this notion is perhaps the greatest leap of development in contemporary history. And I do not mean in any way to demean any of what has happened in technology or elsewhere. But I think that that a change, not just in laws, but in mindsets and conventions is perhaps one of the most dramatic things that have happened, especially in the last decade or so. Which is why today that the theme choose to challenge biases and misconceptions in favor of more gender inclusive world is a very apt one. But I'd like to suggest that the most effective challenge that can be mounted is education of girls. I think that's about the most effective thing that we could do. And anyway, from the point of view of the public sector, that's absolutely the most important thing to do. There's no question that this is the single most potent game changer in the story. Not only does it provide options for economic empowerment for women, but it also ensures that their children will be educated, that they will not be married off too early with their attendant health and population implications. The president, the president of Nigeria underscored this point sometime in 2019 while speaking to governors of the states. For those of us who may not be familiar with the structure of the Nigerian state, we actually have semi-autonomous, almost autonomous states. So it's a federation of states and the states have responsibility for primary and secondary education, although of course the federal government frequently chips into that. But while speaking to the governors, he talked in particular about free and compulsory education, which by the way is law in Nigeria, right? In fact, there's a law Compulsory Free Universal Basic Education Act which provides that every government in Nigeria shall provide free compulsory and universal basic education for every child of primary and junior secondary school age. And it's also a crime for any parent to keep his child or her child out of school for this period. So there will be an issue then and he went on to say that in his view, when a government fails to provide schools, teachers and teaching materials necessary for education, such a government is actually aiding and abetting that crime. And I think it's important that the law does not discriminate as much as the law expects that both boys and girls, especially the primary level, will be given education compulsory. So I think the enforcement of that particular legislation is one that were challenged to do or to activate and is one which at the level of the Nigerian Economic Council, which is a meeting, a monthly meeting of governors of various states, of which I have the privilege of chairing, we frequently monitor what is going on in education of children and in particular education of girls. And there are several initiatives around education of girls and especially in the states where girl child education is particularly disadvantaged. Undoubtedly improving access to education and ensuring that there is uptake requires more than just providing these decisions. As you can see, it's obviously more than just law and it's more than just policy. There are no many factors involved in transforming cultural attitudes around the education of women. So it's about interacting directly with communities and ensuring that parents understand the value of educating their children, especially their daughters. It is about ensuring that homes are also safe, that they have apprehensions of parents and guardians are at rest, that they have the ability of safe and supportive learning environments for our girls exist. And in a country that is so ethnically and religiously diverse, this approach would differ in communities across the country. Not just communities, but also across all sectors, all levels of the country. So transforming ignorant and sexist attitudes that hold women back would definitely engage, would definitely involve engaging influential religious, traditional community leaders and supporting progressive civil society organizations, as well as empowering and training especially female role models and teachers and improving enrollment and retention rates. There's a project that I've been working on with a group of people in the northeast of Nigeria. It started off as a school for many of the young children who were dislocated on account of the problems in the northeast. Now this school has a fairly large number of girls. I think it was about half the number of girls and boys. But at some point we discovered that the girls were saying that they wanted to go off to get married. And many of them, of course, were under the age of 16 and they were just actively, many of them were saying that they would like to go and get married because culturally it's a way to go. And because that has been a dominant culture, after a while people started to think that they are that age left on the shelf. So it was becoming a major concern. But just to talk to the question of female role models. I have very many ladies who work with me who I thought were role models to them. And two or three of them actually went over to speak to these girls in the schools in Maiduguri in northeast Nigeria. And they were able to persuade them that the right way to go was to get educated and be like them, you know, but like these ladies who were already, of course, accomplished and was married, had children, but were also able to take care of themselves and take care of their children and, you know, be reckoned with as it were in society. So I think it's very important to have strong female role models, just as it's important to encourage education of girls, but also more importantly to deconstruct these ideas that young women must be married and this is so on account of culture and in some cases on account of religious practices. So if we devoted our energy solely to this cause and that's the education of girls, I think we will deal a decisive blow to this problem and dramatically in the process reduce poverty and health risks. The other point I'd like to make is, you know, the affirmative empowerment of women economically or otherwise. In my opinion, affirmative empowerment is as much about giving options as it is giving them the means, you know. So it's not just about options, also the means. Our social investment program, which is the largest of its kind, at least in sub-Saharan Africa, focused deliberately on giving women more equal opportunities. 56% of the beneficiaries of what is called a government enterprise and empowerment program, or about 1.5 million women, have been empowered by our micro-credit schemes. So the vast majority of those who benefit from the micro-credit schemes are actually women, 1.5 million of them in total now. 500,000 beneficiaries of the empire graduates, this is a graduate scheme, it's called empire and graduate scheme. There are 500,000 of them. 45% of those beneficiaries are female. And then for the conditional cash transfers, which are cash transfers given to very poor, 96% of beneficiaries are women. Now, the importance of this program, the conditional cash transfers, has demonstrated the resilience and focus of women. They receive a stipend every month, about 5,000 Naira every month. But what we've seen is that they continue to invest in their communities and grow their money. As of December 2020, they had formed almost 35,000 savings groups in 27 states. And I'm sure that some of us might have come across reports of women's groups in Sokoto State buying fairly used vehicles to facilitate their movement to hospitals for childbirth. In some other states, improved primary school infrastructure for their children or started small businesses with over 500,000 revolving loans borrowed from savings groups. These are women who get 5,000 Naira every month as part of the social investments scheme. They identify their own challenges. They focus on how to address them. And in response to the economic shocks of the pandemic in particular, and again, that's a whole topic on its own, but I'll just mention some of what people try to do. A payroll support for small businesses under the Economic Sustainability Plan. Over 43% were women. There's a payroll support for those for many of the small businesses that were experiencing great challenges on account of the lockdowns and all that. For artisans also, 44% were women. As you must already know, the heads of these historic social investment programs are women. Mrs. Miriam Oasis is a special advisor to the president on social investment programs. And now the current minister for humanitarian affairs who handles all the social investment programs today, both of them, you know, are of course women. And no question at all why it is that they are very focused on ensuring that they deliver on the, especially the affirmative empowerment programs. So let me say as I conclude that if we've learnt anything at all in the past decade, it is that ensuring education and empowerment of women is an existential issue for us in Nigeria and indeed in Africa. A child of a mother who can read is 50% more likely to live past the age of five for each additional school year actually increases earnings of a woman by 20%. Two-thirds less maternal deaths occur if mothers finish primary school. Two-thirds fewer maternal deaths would occur if mothers actually finished primary school. So if we hold down half the productive segment of our nation as it says hold down half the sky on account of culture or other frankly outdated considerations, we are much poorer and much more deprived as a whole. So holding down women is holding down our societies. We do ourselves a favour by ensuring social and legal equality of women. Thank you very much.