UNITED NATIONS AND CHALLENGES OF PROMOTING GENDER EQUALITY IN NIGERIA

Abstract

This study critically examines the role of the United Nations in addressing the challenges of promoting gender equality in Nigeria within the framework of global governance and Liberal Institutionalism. Despite Nigeria’s formal commitment to international gender equality instruments including CEDAW and the Sustainable Development Goals (particularly SDG 5) significant disparities persist in political representation, economic participation, and protection against gender-based violence. The research interrogates the paradox between normative adoption and limited substantive transformation. Adopting a qualitative research design, the study relies on documentary analysis of policy documents, United Nations reports, legislative instruments, scholarly literature, and recent empirical data (2023-2025). The analysis is anchored on Liberal Institutionalism, which explains how international institutions facilitate cooperation and norm diffusion, and Global Governance theory, which highlights the structural constraints of multilevel implementation in sovereignty-sensitive contexts. Findings reveal that the United Nations through agencies such as UN Women, United -equality within Nigeria’s policy architecture, legislative reforms, and national development planning frameworks. However, implementation outcomes remain constrained by weak enforcement institutions, governance fragmentation, fiscal limitations, insecurity, socio-cultural resistance, and emerging pressures such as climate stress and digital vulnerability. The study concludes that while international institutional engagement has catalyzed normative progress, transformative gender equality in Nigeria requires deeper domestic political ownership, strengthened enforcement mechanisms, sustained fiscal commitment, and culturally grounded norm internalization. Sustainable advancement depends not merely on policy adoption but on systemic institutional reform and structural realignment capable of translating global commitments into measurable local impact