This press statement is attributable to Onivehu Andah, Executive Director, ImpactHouse.
Abuja, Nigeria: 16 September, 2026
ImpactHouse Centre for Development Communication has lauded the Nigerian government’s move to institutionalise gender-responsive planning and budgeting across ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), with the reform expected to be reflected in the country’s 2027 budget.
However, we are concerned that the implementation response from MDAs has been low, as confirmed by the Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning, Dr Deborah Odoh, who said the ministry had incorporated gender-responsive planning and budgeting into the guidelines for the 2027 budget, but acknowledged that compliance by MDAs remained limited.
Our position is that a guideline that MDAs can ignore without consequence is a guideline in name only. Closing that gap requires sustained public scrutiny, with journalists able to read budget lines, ask who was included or excluded, and track public money from allocation through release to delivery.
This is work ImpactHouse has invested in for more than a decade. Through our Change Reporting initiative and Zenzile virtual newsroom, we have equipped 53 journalists across nine states – Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Kano, Kaduna, Sokoto, Oyo and Akwa Ibom – and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in a separate collaboration with Plan International Nigeria, with concrete gender-reporting skills. These journalists have produced at least 127 published stories on public budgets and social-sector spending through a gender lens, helping to move coverage beyond ceremonial launches to questions of allocation, release and outcomes.
We believe that success stories help to show that reform can work in practice, giving officials something concrete to build on while identifying where the gaps remain and what needs to change. For instance, journalists in places such as Sokoto and Akwa Ibom should be able to examine how much of the state education budget reaches girls and track what happens to the rest.
So now that the federal government has taken the first step by developing the framework, the crucial next test is whether MDAs comply and if there are effective mechanisms outside the Budget Office to independently check that compliance.
ImpactHouse therefore calls on the federal government to:
- publish compliance rates showing which MDAs submitted gender-responsive 2027 budget estimates and which did not;
- report releases alongside allocations to enable effective tracking;
- extend gender-responsive budgeting to states and local governments, which control significant shares of basic education and primary healthcare spending; and
- adequately resource the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) to produce the sex-disaggregated data on which effective gender-responsive planning depends.
We remain open to working with the Federal Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning, the Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development, UN Women Nigeria and state governments to strengthen the media layer needed to make gender-responsive budgeting visible, verifiable and accountable.
END
Media Contact Information:
Email: press@impacthouse.org.ng
Phone: +234908 855 8232
About ImpactHouse
ImpactHouse is an Abuja-based development communication organisation working at the intersection of accountability journalism, civic education and policy advocacy. Its platforms include Development Diaries, Zenzile, Change Reporting, Tok Am Well and Pocabulary. Read more
