Gender

By Adebola Adegoke

 The Policy Innovation Centre (PIC) has launched its ‘Purple Book,’ an advocacy tool, to catalyse innovation and measurable progress towards advancing a gender-inclusive society.

The book was launched during the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) Public Lecture and Founders’ Forum held at the Lagos Business School on Thursday.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that PIC is an initiative of the NESG, a policy advocacy group.

Unveiling the book, Dr Osasuyi Dirisu, Executive Director, PIC, said it served as an advocacy and learning tool that stakeholders, governments and organisations could use to support better policy implementation for gender and social inclusion in Nigeria.

“The Purple Book is a curation of new evidence, contextually relevant solutions and recommendations from the Gender and Inclusion Summits.

“Gender and Inclusion Summit conceptualised in 2022 as an annual event to provide an inclusive platform to explore transformative ways to advance gender, inclusion and gender-responsive governance in Africa,” she said.

Dirisu said the PIC worked to advance policies and innovative programmes for social impact across sectors such as health, education, governance, gender and social inclusion, agriculture and food security, poverty, livelihood and jobs.

She noted that gender and social inclusion were key pillars of the PIC, with its Gender Foyer programme designed to strengthen gender systems through research, information management systems and sector-specific capacity-building programmes.

“The Gender Foyer designs and implements gender focused research and interventions, utilising evidence-based approaches that seek to address harmful gender norms and entrenched inequalities.

“It is an innovative multidisciplinary hub that serves as a platform for capacity development, networking, research, and partnerships to advance gender-responsive policies, programmes, and practices in Africa,” she said.

According to her, the PIC is positioned to support the delivery of better policies and innovative solutions for high impact interventions across Africa.

“PIC is the first national institutionalised behavioural initiative in Africa supporting government and stakeholders to make behaviourally informed decisions and generate evidence for impact driven interventions in critical thematic areas.

“We improve policies and programmes using gender transformative and behavioural approaches to drive positive social change,” she added. (NAN)

Edited by Salif Atojoko