By Abbas Bamalli
The Katsina government says it has registered 3,822 women cooperatives, to enhance data driven decisions on empowerment and other development programmes.
Hajiya Zainab Musawa, the former Commissioner for Women Affairs, stated this during the presentation of the data dashboard to the incumbent Commissioner, Hadiza Yar’Adua, on Wednesday in Katsina.
Musawa was recently redeployed to the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education, while Yar’adua moved from the Ministry of Education to Women Affairs.
She said the data capture exercise conducted in 2023, indicated that each of the women group has an average 30 members.
The exercise, she said, aimed at developing a comprehensive database for women across key strategic pillars, to enable the state government to make informed data driven decisions.
“These cooperatives were registered using a template designed to capture key data sets, which will help in providing tailored interventions and empowerment programmes for women in various sectors including politics, small-scale businesses, startups, and also vulnerable groups, among others,” she said.
Musawa stressed the importance of continuous data update to expand the dashboard.
According to Musawa, the initiative will enable relevant stakeholders to contribute towards the advancement of women across the 34 local government areas of the state.
Also speaking, Nura Murtala, the Permanent Secretary in the ministry, lauded the outgoing commissioner for the initiative and the progress made during her stewardship.
He listed some of the achievements to include provision of technical equipment in the ministry, adding that they would expand on the existing data.
NAN