African Centre for Leadership, Strategy & Development

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Side by Side Faith Movement for Gender Justice

The Side by Side Movement is an initiative made up of people of faith, traditional leaders and faith-based organizations (FBOs) across the world committed to partnering together to challenge barriers to gender justice. The movement is functions in many parts of the world, including Africa, and in May 2018, the West Africa Chapter was flagged off in Ghana to pave way for the launch of national chapters in the West Africa sub-region including Nigeria.

Centre LSD is the Nigerian secretariat of the movement. The 11-person Steering Committee saddled with the responsibility of driving the movement in Nigeria include:

  • Prof. Mustafa Ismail Hussein: Co-Chair
  • Rev. Dr. Israel Akanji: Co-Chair
  • Imam Onike Abdulazeez: Member
  • Hadjia Halima Jibril: Member
  • Pst. Dr. Mrs. Mabel O. Sowoolo: Member
  • Prof James O. I. Ayatse (Tor Tiv): Member
  • Bishop Kingsley Enakhirere: Member
  • Prof (Mrs.) Joy Ezeilo: Member
  • Mrs. Leah Solomon: Member
  • Barr. Mariya Haruna Dogondaji : Member
  • Dr. Otive Igbuzor : Member
Intervention Projects

The movement was launched formally in Nigeria and members of the movement committed to promoting gender justice in Nigeria through

  • Awareness raising by encouraging Faith leaders to interpret scriptures to promote gender justice as recorded in the sacred texts without discrimination against women.
  • Partnership through information sharing about existing work by faith leaders on development issues to address gender justice.
  • Capacity building of faith leaders to address development and gender justice issues.
  • Advocacy and Campaign for gender justice issues at the local, national and global levels. Members recognize that the National Gender Policy can be a good tool for advocacy.
  • Platform for engagement for people of faith and tradition to engage in open debate on gender justice issues.
  • Research and evidence to build evidence for gender justice issues. The reports of the research will be disseminated to faith and traditional leaders to use in promoting gender justice.
  • Amplify the voice of faith leaders and faith-based organisation in Nigeria for gender justice to hold elected leaders accountable on gender issues.
  • Build and promote champions of gender justice from faith-based organisation.
  • Members agreed to develop principles, priorities and action plans for addressing gender justice in Nigeria.

The Nigerian chapter has commissioned a research to look at the theological perspectives to gender justice in Nigeria to examine the relationship between religion and gender justice in Nigeria from a theological perspective.

Projects