On August 3, 2021, U.S. Chargé d’Affaires in Nigeria, Kathleen FitzGibbon, joined Nigerian Minister for Humanitarian Affairs Sadiya Umar Farouq and Minister for Women’s Affairs Dame Pauline Tallen to launch MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership in Nigeria.

MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership supports governments, local partners, and initiatives at national and international levels to advance technical leadership and improve health care for women and children. In Nigeria, the project will address drivers of child, early, and forced marriage, and help prevent and reduce the impact of violence against women and girls, also known as gender-based violence (GBV).

“This new activity from USAID will strengthen gender-based violence response mechanisms, help communities transform discriminatory gender and social norms that continue to subordinate women and make them vulnerable, and uphold and defend women’s health and human rights,” FitzGibbon said at the launch. “It will increase women’s voice and agency and reduce their vulnerability to gender-based violence.”

In Nigeria, one in three women and girls between the ages of 15 and 24 have experienced GBV.¹ This kind of violence has reached epidemic proportions in Nigeria, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic,² in the form of intimate partner violence, rape, and early and forced marriage.

For more information about the launch event and the project’s plans in Nigeria, read the full press release on USAID’s website.