1.

0 INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND
Over the last two and a half decade, questions on gender and particularly those
concerning the place and role of women have acquired much greater importance
within the entire human race. In Nigeria, activities of women in the development
process cannot be said to be a new subject. Before and after the independence
of Nigeria, women have been able to make their impact known in different facet
of human endeavours. For example, in decision making, agriculture, politics and
social issues has witnessed tremendous human participation.
before the British colonization of Nigeria, women played prominent roles in
deciding issues in Nigerian society, for instance during the invasion of Ife and
Igala land where people were killed by invaders, It was women like princess
Inikpi of Igala land and Moremi of Ife that paid the supreme sacrifice with their
lives and saved the people from the carnage.
However, since globalization has started to make the participation of women
pronounced with a great depth of consciousness, social relations have acquired
relatively distanceless and borderless qualities such that human lives are
increasingly played out in the world as a single place. Globalization has come to
affect and revolve around our lives such that it has great implication for women in
development with the build up of organization that cater for the interest of the
female gender.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Globalization refers to a process whereby social relations have acquired
relatively distanceless and borderless qualities such that human lives are
increasingly played out in the world as a single place. Globalization is thus an
ongoing trend whereby the world has in many respect and at a generally
accelerating rate become one relatively borderless social sphere. It is hard to
determine a specific moment when globalization started. Periodization is always
imprecise and contentious largely because change and continuity are invariably
interwined, though researchers have variously dated the onset of globalization
from the dawn of human civilization.
One of the most topical issues in the current debate of development worldwide
has been that of the role of women in development in their own society. Nigeria
has not been left out of global discussion, she participated in these International
conferences and within the same period had at least two major conferences in
1977 and 1985 devoted to the issues of women in development. Yet, the
situation of women in Nigeria has not really improved, nor has their development
as participants or beneficiaries of the process.
The African traditional religion also frowns at women that want their voices to be
heard, they believe that such women should have no place in the society as they
bring havoc upon the entire community .Owing to these reasons, women and
their issues were in the cooler for many years and it was not until lately that the
growing awareness of gender issue became visible.
1.3 OBJECTIVE OF STUDY
i. To bring out the idea that globalization has contributed immensely to the
proliferation of organizations that have aided women in developmental issues.
ii. To induce and to incite women to make meaningful contribution to the
development of the Nigerian society through concerted effort.
iii. To establish the fact that before a well grounded development can be
witnessed in Nigeria, qualitative and barrier reduced participation of women is
required and to give credible recommendations that will enhance the functioning
and working of women group, so that effective participation in the development
process can be achieved.

1.4
SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The scope of this study will be the period between 1980 till date. The reason for
this is was a period when globalization started establishing itself in the Nigerian
context and it spread automatically affecting all sphere of human life including
more participation of women in developmental activities, through the proliferation
of women non governmental organizations and regulatory agencies. The
numbers of these specialized bodies have increased tremendously between
these period.

1.5
LITERATURE REVIEW
It should be understood that the subject matter here is not only about women in
development but more importantly, the impact of globalization on gender
diplomacy; the implications that the current wave of globalization has had on
activities of women in development and also on gender equality in Nigeria.
According to Kate Young in her book titled “Planning Development with women:
Making the world of difference”, the concentration of women’s mothering role had
allowed planners to miss their essential productive contributions especially in
agriculture.
In the book “African women in the development process” edited by Nici Nelson, it
is believed that a great deal needs to be done. Women continue to be more
underfed, under-educated and overworked than men. She stressed that “failure
to take cognisance of the crucial role played by women in their societies and the
economies results in a serious loss of efficiency and productivity”. Nici Nelson
believes that increasing production and ensuring a more equitable relationship
between the gender can only be achieved through consulting and involving
women actively in development process, both the planning and the
implementation level.
The problem of making women more relevant in the development of the society
has become a global cause for concern. Despite the campaign in Nigeria for
improved education for single girls and women, some traditional obstacles
continue to serve as impediments to female education and this subsequently
serve as a factor coming in the way of substantial participation of women in
development.
In “Nigerian women in society and development”, Sesay and Odebiyi(ed) believe
that the period of women taking back seat is far fading out and that with the
combined efforts of government, non-governmental organizations and the entire
Nigerian community, the marginalization of women folk will completely be a thing
of the past. With various contributions in fields as law, education, health, science
and technology and a host of others, the book makes evident that women can go
places given the necessary backing they need.
Maryam Babangida, in her book “The Homefront “(1988) discusses reasons why
women’s involvement would be of great importance to the nation, She says that
by including women in all spheres of socio-political and economic development of
a country harness its full potentials for optimism growth and development,
because women tend to have different and unique approaches to problem
solving than men; women’s perspective will complement those of men to produce
better solution to the political and economic needs of the nation.
Considering women in development in the face of globalization is another issue
of concern because apparently globalization has given a new view to study
women in development.
According to John Baylis and Steve Smith, in an edited work titled “The
Globalization of World politics”, globalization is referred to as the process of
increasing inter-connectedness such that events in one part of the world more
and more have effects on people and societies far away in spatial terms.
Globalization is connected to a number of potentially far-reaching changes in the
world order and has presented a fundamental challenge to the issue of women
in development. A series of global crises, in terms of trade independence , debt
and restructuring have hit women hard. The dramatic changes which are part of
globalization of production and of the market present a dramatic shift of public to
private expenditure and from state to family especially women’s responsibilities.
The effect of this on women is that, it brought about cutbacks in state services
like health, education and social security. It also affects women social security
and their employment opportunity. It is evident that the move of women in
development has become a global concern that has gotten women to become
part and parcel of the reality of a global era or simply put the world society.

1.6 THEORETICAL ORIENTATION/BACKGROUND

There are different theories that can explain this work like the liberal feminism
theory, cultural feminism theory, the contemporary Marxian feminism theory etc.
But the theoretical framework for the purpose of this research will be the
contemporary Marxian feminism theory because it looks at gender relations
within what they consider to be more fundamental structure of a class system
and within the contemporary capitalist class system. They acknowledge that
within any class, women are less advantaged than men in their access to
material goods, power, status, and possibilities for self actualization and the
causes of these inequalities lies in the organization of capitalism itself.

1.7 HYPOTHESIS
Based on the study, there is a significant relationship between globalization and
gender diplomacy because globalization has started to make the participation of
women pronounced with a great depth of consciousness. Globalization brought
with it different problems, crises for one became prevalent in the era of
globalization and this gave a reversal to how far women could go. It kind of
repressed the extent of their involvement and the context within which women
deal with contemporary crises, and the nature of crises themselves varies from
region to region but maintained that women are seen as agents of change
responding to the crises facing their societies in the modern world.

2.0 METHOD SECTION

2.1 RESEARCH DESIGN

This study will be a non experimental research design because it is descriptive in
nature and the subject cannot be actively controlled.

2.2 STUDY LOCATION

This study location here will be in Nigeria. Nigeria is an African country with the
largest population in Africa with a population of about 140million.It has the largest
concentration of blacks in the world. It is a country that is well placed at the
junction of the West and Central Africa and with access to the Atlantic ocean.
2.3 STUDY POPULATION
The population of study in this research will be the women fold in Nigeria

2.4 SAMPLE SIZE

A sample size of 200 respondents will be chosen from the the different
geographical location in Nigeria

2.5 SAMPLE METHOD

Under the probability sample method , the stratified random method will be used
to generalize the totality of women in Nigeria.

2.6 RESEARCH INSTRUMENT

The use of research questionaire will be utilized for this research.