Stakeholders seek stronger Katsina women’s role in security

Katsina State has been urged to draw lessons from the implementation of the Women, Peace and Security agenda in Kano and Niger states to strengthen its structures and improve women’s participation in peacebuilding and security decision-making.

The call followed experience-sharing by the Kano State WPS Chairperson, Hadiza Bala Fage, and Nana Hauwa Isa, representing Niger State WPS, who shared lessons and success stories from their respective states during a WPS stakeholders’ engagement in Katsina on Tuesday.

The session provided an opportunity for Katsina stakeholders to examine strategies that had worked in Kano and Niger and identify areas that could be adapted to strengthen the state’s WPS implementation.

The Kano experience highlighted the importance of sustained advocacy, coordination and institutional engagement in advancing women’s participation in peace and security processes, while the Niger experience demonstrated the value of linking WPS structures with community-level security, justice and referral mechanisms.

The lessons were considered particularly relevant to Katsina, where stakeholders identified the need to strengthen coordination among government institutions, security agencies, civil society organisations, traditional institutions, religious leaders and women-led groups.

The discussions also emphasised the importance of ensuring that WPS structures do not exist merely on paper but have clearly defined responsibilities, regular participation of relevant institutions and measurable action plans.

Katsina co-chair WPS, Hajiya Bilkisu Nasir Yashe, identified inconsistency in the representation of ministries, departments and agencies as one of the major risks that Katsina needed to avoid.

According to her, “Frequent changes in MDA representatives could affect continuity, institutional memory and effective implementation of decisions reached by the WPS structure.

She said, “Community leaders and religious leaders should be the first step for referral because they are closer to the people.”

According to her, strengthening community-level referral systems would enable WPS stakeholders to identify and respond to emerging peace, security and protection concerns more quickly.

She added that a breakout session was held during the engagement, where participants developed new action plans for further implementation.

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Responding to the lessons from the two states, the Katsina State Project Coordinator of the Rule of Law and Empowerment Initiative, also known as Partners West Africa Nigeria, Bola Bello, said PWAN, with support from the UK International Development, SPRING and TETRA TECH, Katsina needed to leverage the strengths of different stakeholders to strengthen implementation.

Bello stated that the experience-sharing had provided important lessons on how Katsina could adapt successful approaches from other states while avoiding challenges that could undermine implementation.

According to her, “After experience sharing, lessons learnt, how Katsina WPS can adapt and risks to avoid, one of the key lessons is leveraging on each other’s strengths to strengthen implementation and also reviewing the outdated workplan.”

She also said stakeholders reviewed the mapping of existing WPS structures, stakeholder roles and coordination relationships, stressing the need to revisit and strengthen the existing arrangement.

She said the WPS constitution should clearly define the responsibilities of every executive member to ensure accountability and effective coordination.

“Every executive member’s role should be clearly spelt out and communicated,” she said.

Bello further called for stronger referral, response and community-feedback mechanisms, with traditional and religious leaders playing a more prominent role.

The stakeholders also recommended that Katsina review its outdated WPS workplan and align it with the state’s current peace, security and protection challenges.

They stressed that lessons from Kano and Niger should not be copied wholesale but adapted to Katsina’s peculiar security and socio-cultural environment.

The emerging consensus was that Katsina already has structures upon which it can build, but stronger institutional coordination, clearly defined roles, consistent MDA representation and effective community referral mechanisms are required to translate the WPS agenda into practical results.