The Better Life Programme for Rural Women or BLP was a project in Nigeria started in September 1987 by Maryam Babangida, the wife of President Ibrahim Babangida. The programme was discontinued after a change in government. The idea of BLP originated at a workshop organized by Maryam Babangida with the scope of discussing relegation of rural women in discourse affecting national development and invisibility of positive actions towards causes favoring rural women. When the project started, the objectives were to reduce maternal and child mortality rate by increasing basic healthcare facilities for women, provide income-generating opportunities in agriculture and cottage industries, integrate rural women into national development plans and develop educational training for women. However, the programme provoked criticism because funds allocated to many projects were unaccounted for largely because there was no budgetary allocation to fund BLP. Access to government funds by a first lady was challenged as unconstitutional and some critics view the project as a means to increase the personality of the first lady.
The Programme
Prior to the launch of Better Life, Maryam Babangida held consultations with various stakeholders such as the Directorate for Food and Rural Infrastructure and women organizations about economic and social constraints affecting rural women. In 1986, she visited two villages close to Lagos, Igbologun and Ilado-Odo. The villages did not have clean water and power distribution infrastructure. The visit confirmed her understanding that more actions should be directed towards rural development. In 1987, a workshop on the role of rural women in development was held in Abuja and led to the establishment of BLP.
Projects
BLP focused on key areas of nutrition, education, agriculture.
Agriculture
BLP created strategies that mobilized some rural women farmers to produce affordable food crops that has nutritional and national development values such as Cassava for starch production and grain produce. Women farmers were encouraged to unite under cooperative societies to increase access to credit and land grants, extension services and technology. The programme introduced basic farm and mechanized inputs such as cutlasses and subsidized tractor for hire service. Food processing machines were also made available to women farmers.
Education
A strategy to increase literacy and the agriculture know-how of rural women was adult literacy programmes tailored to functional and vocational subject areas such as dress making, knitting and mathematics.
Healthcare
BLP mobilized the provision of primary health care centers close to rural settlements. It mobilized women to get immunizations, established small pharmacies and trained mid-wives and provided VVF centers. The programme was also involved in extending family planning services to rural women and providing education about health and safety issues concerning child marriage and sexually transmitted diseases.
Organizational structure
After the launch of BLP, wives of military governors were tasked to understand the plight of rural women in their specific states and create projects that will benefit rural women and linking such projects to the appropriate state ministry. A committee under the headship of the wife of the military governor, that included a director-general and leading female government employees managed and implemented BLP projects in each state. From 1987 to 1993. BLP did not legally have access to any budgetary allocation and critics soon queried the source of funding for many of its projects. Many wives of governor advertised their projects in newspapers and when attending conferences stayed at choice hotels. Many of these actions provoked a debate about the constitutional authority of a wive of a military president and access to state funds.
