NCDMB Restates Commitment To Close Gender Gap In Oil, Gas Sector

Wabote in his remarks at the maiden edition of Women in Oil and Gas Industry Workshop with the theme, “Mainstreaming Women In The Oil And Gas Industry” cited a recent study by the Global Energy Talent Index Report which categorically declared that there is a chronic shortage of women in the oil and gas industry.
According to Wabote, It is estimated that women occupy about 50 per cent of non-technical positions at entry level compared to only 15 per cent of technical and field role positions, adding that gender diversity decreases with seniority with only a tiny proportion of women in executive positions.

“The percentage of women in the industry drops over time from 36 per cent to 24 per cent between the middle and executive level.”, he said.

Wabote stated that the agency has recognised the unique challenges faced by women in the oil and gas industry and would take advantage of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development (NOGICD) Act to reverse the trend.

“Looking at some of the challenges such as career advancement, untapped talents, gender imbalance and Limited Presence of Women in Technical roles (STEM) etc. encountered by women in the oil and gas industry, I would like to believe that there is a glimmer of hope in the sector.

The energy policies we establish today will affect the investment and innovations of tomorrow, and those technologies will help determine the economic growth and individual opportunities for future generations.” the ES stated.

He expressed NCDMB’s determination to play the role in Human Capacity Development, stressing that part of the Board’s strategy for implementing the NOGICD Act is development and implementation of its Capacity Development Initiatives

“Our capacity building interventions includes deepening indigenous capabilities in the areas of Human Capital Development, Infrastructure & Facilities, Manufacturing, and Local Supplier Development.

We have taken specific steps to train maritime cadets, secondary school teacher, agricultural entrepreneurs, pilots, IDPs training in different crafts, technicians, engineers, and environmentalists with over 6 million training manhours delivered.

We also have Capacity Building Centers embedded in the design of our Nigerian Oil and Parks Scheme as part of our contribution to the development of infrastructure in the country.

Out of the total number trained by the Board, women constitute about 20 per cent of the trainees and we hope to increase the number of women trained to meet up the industry skilled labour demand and we will also do more to encourage women to participate more the oil and gas industry across the country. “, he enumerated.

The ES stated that the NOGICD Act sets the minimum targets in 278 services across oil and gas value chain in the Schedule and it covers the search, development, production, and utilisation of Hydrocarbons (full life cycle) and beyond.

The Schedule is a compendium of opportunities as it lists various activities in the oil and gas industry and sets out the desired level of Nigerian content in accordance with various units of measurement.

However, beyond the known services in the oil and gas services such as fabrication and construction, well drilling services, installations, FEED and detailed design engineering etc, there are other opportunities in the sector which women can key into and implored women to take advantage of the NOGICD Act.

He said that on the global scale, women make up about 15 per cent of the workforce in the oil and gas industry which is considerably smaller than most major industries; finance, manufacturing, construction etc.

Wabote however said that another study, estimates that nearly 1.9 million opportunities are projected in the oil and gas industry by 2035 with women occupying 185,000 of total jobs opportunities.

In a brief remark, the managing director of the Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA, Hadiza Bala-Usman, urged young girls to take interest in science subjects to help make unhindered entry into the industry.

She however, advised that industry operators and institutions should adjust procedures that entrench gender imbalances in employment for local content to be meaningful to both women and men.

Bala-Usman argued that Investment in girls/women education in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) is quite an imperative strategy and that such capacity building is not event based, but enquires a long time plan.

She noted that affirmative action in energy policies is also an empowering strategy that can be used to expand women’s access to boardroom spaces where energy decisions are made, enabling them to overcome the constraints to their participation in decision-making in big businesses and energy-based enterprises.

She said that there is evidence that having women in executive positions and on the board can contribute to stronger financial performance and that the better a company is at promoting women, the better it tends to rank in terms of profitability, adding that her present position was purely by merit after successfully working as Chief of Staff to the Governor of Kaduna. State.

In her paper, the Head of Service of the Federation, Folashade Yemi-Esan, said, “Each time I have an opportunity to highlight the immense capacity of women and the effect decisions and actions pertaining to nation building have on us, I am always more than elated and ready to be an advocate for our advancement” which was the major reason she had to attend the event in spite of exigencies of office.

Continuing, she said, “Moreover, when I was presented with the theme of the workshop, “MAINSTREAMING WOMEN INTO THE OIL AND GAS INDUSTRY”, I was moved by the sincerity and empathy of the Executive Secretary, who irrespective of his gender, decided to drive and give maximum support to this initiative himself. Without reservation I wish to state that Engr. Simbi is truly an epitome of what humanity stands for.

In addition, I consider the NCDMB as the most cardinal stakeholder and driver of gender mainstreaming in Nigeria, considering its mandate as well as the various mechanisms put in place by the Board particularly under the foresighted leadership of Engr. Simbi which I wish to state are certainly unprecedented.

Painting an unbalanced picture in the sector, she said, “To begin with, sourcing data on women in the oil and gas industry could be a herculean task. More so, data specific to Africa.

Notwithstanding, we can infer from gender related data to give us an overview of the current situation.

She said that available data provided by the World Petroleum Council in its 2017 report, women account for just about a fifth of the workforce of global oil and gas companies including national oil companies, compared to almost every other sector surveyed in the report.

More fascinating is a recent Linked-in analysis which discovered that women made-up just 26.7 per cent of oil and gas industry related profiles in contrast to about 12 dozen industries analyzed and further alarming is the almost negligible stock of women who occupy technical or sit in executive boardrooms of oil companies in Nigeria which have been dubbed a boys’ club, she said.

Unfortunately she added that while men and women apparently set out on a general equal footing, women scarcely reach the top of the organisation pointing that the deficit may superficially be attributed to poor ambition among women but a more thorough study of scenario will paint a wider picture.

She also observed that common among the impediments to the scaling of women’s participation in the oil and gas industry are strongly held stereotypes and perceptions society has nursed overtime with regard to women breaking the barriers of the conventional roles they have been constrained to and occupying decision making positions.

“The issue of gender parity in the corporate world is a global problem and Nigeria is not left out. For instance, in Nigeria, while it is worth noting that the country is signatory to various international and regional protocols such as the Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Africa Protocol on Women’s Rights, both of which aim to promote women’s rights, compliance

with such protocols/conventions can hardly be felt in critical sectors, including oil and gas. This, I must add, is also the case in several other countries of the world.”she said

She narrated how she was invited recently to speak at a similar event under the auspices of the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) where the salient subject of inputting the perspective of women in structuring Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) in key sectors was brought to the fore with a view to ensuring gender mainstreaming with regard to needs and social roles of women.

At the event, she pointed out that the challenges of inadequate access to basic services such as water, sanitation and energy and the attendant role of girls and women in collecting water and biofuels such as firewood from long distances impede the comprehensive education of the girl-child as a result of valuable time expended to carryout basic household chores.

She regretted that in spite of the growing awareness that women and men have unique uses for infrastructure, the common assumption that infrastructure provision and the accrued benefits cover all gender has not changed substantially adding that it is of essence that we recognize that there are international minimum compliance standards and protocols that relate to women, rather than expending resources and

efforts on mitigating the negative impacts of a non-compliant infrastructure investment which falls short in promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment.

“Therefore, this flagship initiative of the NCDMB could not have come at a more appropriate time. I am optimistic that this workshop is just the beginning of several other dialogues to be initiated by the Board to complement other ongoing activities, programmes and policies of government to propel Nigeria to achieve the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly Goals 4, 5 and 10.”, she said.

Having identified some of the key challenges women face in the Industry, she urged that is also pertinent to emphasize that pressing for, or creating affirmative action policies are not sufficient in themselves to actualize this course but it is instructive to recognize that fundamentally, the effective implementation of gender related policies is widely dependent on actions taken by women to acquire the requisite skills for technical positions taking into cognizance that affirmative action is not geared towards jettisoning quality for quantity.