SIRP last week in Bridge-waters hotel, Enugu organized a workshop on gender responsive budgeting for 10 participants. These 10 participants comprised of both Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and relevant Government officials. The whole basis for this workshop was to build their capacity on tracking the Enugu State Government budget as it relates to child marriage.

This program kicked off with an opening prayer and introductions facilitated by Miss Nnedi. After this, there was a brief opening remark from Dr. Chris Ugwu, the Executive Director of SIRP, Nigeria. He first of all thanked GirlsNotBrides (GNB) for supporting this program. Thereafter, he thanked all the participants for making out time to attend this training. After the opening remark, Evelyn Onah from Tarma Sarc disagreed to Tarma Sarc being addressed as a ministry. She said that 'Tarma Sarc was handed to the Enugu state government in 2017 and is being handled by the Ministry of Gender Affairs, Health and Justice.

We thereafter went on an assessment of the current status of the implementation of the Enugu State 2020 budget in light of the COVID-19 pandemic in the State. This is most especially with regards to child marriage and adolescent girls. We thereafter went on to train participants on how to use PETS (Public Expenditure Tracking Survey) framework in budget and expenditure tracking.

After this training, we thereafter entertained comments from a host of participants. First to speak was Anna Oguejiofor from the State Ministry of Health (SMOH). She said that they were not contacted on time prior to the workshop hence, can't present documented figures, but will use estimated figures. She went further to suggest that budgets should be critically studied, and that the limitations caused by the COVID-19 pandemic shouldn't be ignored. She also suggested for the Enugu State Universal Basic Education Board (ENSUBEB) to be invited for meetings/workshops like this. Rhoda Ikechukwu from ACERDEN on her own part suggested that new strategies should be explored in regards to children completing their education. This is most especially with menstrual products. She went further to complain about how schools write to organizations like ENSUBEB for support without getting any response. Virginia Obianugo from CIRDDO said that she's aware that menstrual materials were released in this COVID-19 period. She however said that her issue of concern is ministries not meeting up to what they signed as budgets. She mentioned a case whereby 40 seats were released to a school instead of 100 as budgeted and signed.

After this series of comments, the participants were later split into 3 groups under gender, health and education, for them to properly discuss the gender mainstreaming in these budget lines. After these deliberations, they thereafter make group presentations.

Finally, the workshop came to an end with a closing remark by Dr. Chris Ugwu thanking everyone for coming and specially thanking GirlsNotBrides (GNB) for supporting this program.