Women, peace and security in Nigeria

Nigeria ranks 162nd out of 181 countries on the 2025 WPS Index with a score of 0.495, which is below both the global average (0.650) and the Sub-Saharan Africa average (0.511). While the country has seen a turnaround in its ranking to 2017 levels, significant disparities persist between the North and South, particularly in education and exposure to conflict. The document highlights the role of National Action Plans (NAPs) and specific initiatives like the AGILE project and RESMAT, while noting that a lack of systematic monitoring and evaluation hinders the implementation of these frameworks.

• Nigeria's 2025 WPS Index score of 0.495 places it 162nd globally and 34th among 44 Sub-Saharan African countries. The country performs poorly in maternal mortality and women's parliamentary representation, although it shows strength in legal protections against discrimination and women's cell phone use.
• There are stark educational disparities based on region and religion; Christian women in the South average 9.5 years of schooling, while Muslim women in the North average 4.5 years. For women born in the 1990s, Christian women still have twice as many years of schooling as Muslim women.
• Women's exposure to conflict varies by region: the Northeast is affected by Boko Haram and ISWAP, the Southwest by the criminal organization Black Axe, and the Southeast by the separatist group Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). In Borno State, approximately half of the women in conflict zones were exposed to over 100 battle-related deaths within a 50 km radius.
• Nigeria has implemented three National Action Plans (NAPs) on WPS, with the third currently in development, and at least 14 states have created their own action plans. These are based on five pillars: Prevention, Participation, Protection, Prosecution, and Promotion.
• Specific initiatives to improve WPS include the World Bank's AGILE project for girls' education, the National Policy on Women’s Economic Empowerment (2023), and the RESMAT program, which provides free emergency C-sections and transport to reduce maternal mortality.
• A legislative proposal is underway to create 182 special seats for women in the National Assembly (74) and State Houses of Assembly (108) to address the decline in parliamentary representation.
• The implementation of WPS frameworks is severely hampered by the absence of a reliable monitoring system, leading to fragmented data and an inability to systematically document outcomes for both National and Local Action Plans.

APA

Idowu, E., Adeyi, A., & Rustad, S. A. (2025). Women, peace and security in Nigeria. Peace Research Institute Oslo. https://cdn.cloud.prio.org/files/82232d07-4126-4aca-a063-f35143e9fbd5/GPS Policy Brief 5 - 2025.pdf?inline=true

Chicago

Idowu, Esther, Alice Adeyi, and Siri Aas Rustad. Women, peace and security in Nigeria. Peace Research Institute Oslo, 2025. https://cdn.cloud.prio.org/files/82232d07-4126-4aca-a063-f35143e9fbd5/GPS Policy Brief 5 - 2025.pdf?inline=true.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Idowu |first1=Esther |last2=Adeyi |first2=Alice |last3=Rustad |first3=Siri Aas |title=Women, peace and security in Nigeria |publisher=Peace Research Institute Oslo |date=May 2025 |url=https://cdn.cloud.prio.org/files/82232d07-4126-4aca-a063-f35143e9fbd5/GPS Policy Brief 5 - 2025.pdf?inline=true |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{idowu2025women, author = {Idowu, Esther and Adeyi, Alice and Rustad, Siri Aas}, title = {{Women, peace and security in Nigeria}}, institution = {Peace Research Institute Oslo}, year = {2025}, month = may, url = {https://cdn.cloud.prio.org/files/82232d07-4126-4aca-a063-f35143e9fbd5/GPS Policy Brief 5 - 2025.pdf?inline=true}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }