Imaan Ibrahim, Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, has said that investment in the care economy would boost decent jobs for women in Nigeria.

Mrs Imaan made the declaration on Wednesday at the 2026 National Council on Women Affairs and Social Development held in Jalingo.

The theme for the convention is “Strengthening Families and Advancing the Care Economy for Inclusive Development: Operationalising Nigeria’s Renewed Social Protection Architecture”.

“Build the care economy deliberately. established  and license childcare provision, invest in early childhood development and elderly and disability care, and treat the sector as an employment strategy.

“For decades, unpaid and under-recognised care work, performed overwhelmingly by women, has sustained households, communities and the economy itself without recognition, without measurement and without support.

“Nigerian women most times perform the volume of unpaid care work that men do, and that invisible labour is one of the principal reasons capable women remain outside the formal workforce.

“Care is not a private matter to be absorbed silently within the household. It is infrastructure, and it should be treated, financed and regulated as such.

“Through investment in childcare, elderly and disability care, community health, early childhood development and social care infrastructure, we create decent jobs while reducing unpaid care burdens and enabling more women to work.

“A crèche at a market for instance is not a welfare gesture, it is truly a productivity intervention. A childcare sector is therefore not only a safeguarding measure, but also an employment sector in which women are the workforce, the owners and the beneficiaries at once,” she added.

The minister also said that the ministry had developed, reviewed and validated up to 42 instruments to serve as a coherent architecture for the sector.

She listed the newly created instruments to include National Policies, National Guidelines, National Action Plans, Implementation Frameworks and Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning Framework.

“The most consequential development of the past year is that Nigeria now has a coherent policy architecture for this sector where previously we had fragments.

”In this period alone, the Ministry has developed, reviewed and validated 38  new instruments, bringing our portfolio to forty-two instruments in total.

“These are not documents for a shelf. They cover adoption, childcare centres, orphanages and residential care, the wellbeing of the Nigerian boy-child, shelters for survivors of sexual and gender-based violence.

“Gender mainstreaming and workplace gender equality, menstrual health and hygiene management, women’s economic empowerment, social protection for vulnerable groups, rehabilitation centres, humanitarian assistance and emergency response.

“Services for persons with disabilities, family support and community inclusion, the regulation of partner engagement, and the standard operating procedures that make each of them operable at State level,” she added.

Mrs Imaan also tasked women leaders with the domestication of women’s policies in their states to ensure implementation, financing and adoption of the goals.

She commended Governor Agbu Kefas of Taraba for the warm hospitality and excellent arrangements made for the important national gathering.

Earlier, while declaring the session open, Mr Kefas, represented by the state Head of Service, Ahmed Kara, urged women to support the people-oriented policies of the President Tinubu administration for a better Nigeria.

(NAN)