Gender Activists assist women aspirants

Gender Activists assist women aspirants
Daily Graphic, Tuesday, 4th May, 2010: Page 11; (Gender and Children)
Nurudeen Salifu, Tamale.

Gender rights activists have launched a project designed to improve women’s participation in the forthcoming district assembly elections in the Upper West Region.

Dubbed, “The All Political Rights Project,” the project will provide the requisite resources for women aspirants to participate in the 2010 district assembly elections and assist them to campaign effectively and win elections.

It will also build the capacities of female aspirants and put together well-planned campaign strategies that will encourage the electorate to vote for women during the elections.

Speaking at the launch of the project, the Upper West Regional Director of Women and member of the Women’s Manifesto Coalition, Mrs. Kate Bob Millar, underscored the need to give legal backing to the affirmative action policy aimed at addressing the gender imbalance in political representation both at the local and national levels.

She said “if there was a national lack backing these directives and commitments, there would be no way of escaping their implementation.” She added that an affirmative action policy backed by the law, was therefore, the best option, to improve women’s representation in governance since it would make it mandatory for state authorities to give fair representation to women as a matter of law, not out of sympathy.

Some gender advocates at the programme argued that the issuance of directives and commitments regarding the appointment of women to political posts had not yield much result, since there was no legal framework to enforce such directives.

They noted that although various political administrations had committed themselves to allocate a proportion of positions to women these pledges had not been fulfilled. They also noted that these administrations had equally given directives to the effect that 30 or 50 per cent of government appointees to district assemblies should be women, but these had also not been adhered to.

The Foundation for Female Photojournalists (FFP), together with the Women’s Manifesto Coalition is spearheading the project, with support from the Institute of Local Government Studies (ILGS).

Six regions have been selected to benefit from the programme. They are Northern, Upper West, Upper East, Greater Accra, Volta and Central regions.

Launching the project, the Northern Regional Minister, Mr. Moses Bukari Mabengba, noted that the government was committed to creating an enabling environment for women to develop their potential and getting fair representation in governance.

He, however, observed that the bane to women’s participation in politics was lack of education, which he noted had created a situation where many women could not participate in decision making in some areas.

The minister, therefore, called for a more aggressive pursuit of girl-child education so as to produce qualified women to participate in decision making.

The Programme Officer of the FFP, Ms Esenam Tilly Adu-Gyamfi, told the Daily Graphic that the objective of the project was to address some challenges that confront women in the 2006 district assembly elections.

These challenges, she noted, had been identified in a review conducted by the Women’s Manifesto Coalition and these included cultural barriers, gender discrimination and resource constraints.

“The project would, therefore, assist the women aspirants to acquire passport photographs for the production of posters and handbills to sell their messages to their constituents,” Ms Adu-Gymafi said.

She appealed for support from other organisations and institutions to facilitate the implementation of the project and ultimately improve women representation in governance.

‘Let’s support women in local government’

‘Let’s support women in local government’
Daily Graphic; Thursday, April 22, 2010; Page 11 (Gender & Children)
Salome Donkor

The role of women in politics and public office is one of the current burning governance issues because of the perceived and acknowledged potential and contribution of women to governance processes.

Gender and policy advocacy organisations recognize that improving the lives of women and other members of society require a balanced gender representation in government structures by promoting greater responsiveness to women in politics and decision-making,

For some women who want to enter national politics, governance at the various levels, namely by the local or district, regional and national, is crucial to them, since it provides them with good training grounds to improve their chances of being elected to political office to promote gender-balance in decision-making at all levels.

The involvement of more women in politics and decision-making is expected to meet their interests and basic needs and enable them continue to influence policies from a gender perspective and addressing inequalities and injustices in social relationships.

The local government system has therefore become good grounds for some women, who want to enter into national politics. But the most difficult challenge that confront most women intending to enter into local government, is lack of funds.

The support women in the 2006 District Assembly elections, the Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs (MOWAC), launched the “Women in Local Government Fund” to assist women aspirants.

According to the Public Relations Officer of MOWAC, Mrs. Adiza Ofori-Adu, each of the 1, 772 women who contested the 2006 District Assembly elections, received GH¢20.00 for their campaign activities.

She said the Department of Women in the various regions have been task to work in collaboration with the district assemblies and identify 20 women from each district to support them to take part in the forthcoming district assembly elections.

Speaking at a day’s review meeting on “Challenges and Prospects of Women in Decision-Making Positions,” in Koforidua recently, the Eastern Regional Director of the Department of Women, Ms Jane Kwapong, re-emphasised the need for the private sector, corporate bodies and related organizations and individuals to financially support the “Women in Local Government Fund.”

She said society should see gender equality as a tool for sustainable development and called for support and encouragement by both men and women to ensure that more women were elected in the forthcoming district assembly elections.

Participants were drawn from civil society organisations , women’s groups, the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), Gender Desk Officers and assembly women.

She urged political parties to promote equal rights and opportunities for women and men to engage in political activities and take further steps to elect women in their “safe constituencies” to contest parliamentary elections increase the number of women in parliament.

She said since women’s reproductive roles tended to militate against their participation in politics and other decision-making processes, there was need to encourage the sharing of household responsibilities to enable more women to participate in public life.

The Member of Parliament for New Jauben South, Madam Beatrice B. Boateng, who is also an elected assembly member of the New Jauben Municipal Assembly, advised women to rise above reproach in the face of all changes and prove their worth, stressing that some women had been able to make it, despite the challenges.

She mentioned poverty as a major challenge that prevented women from aspiring to greater heights and pointed out that the problems could be overcome with determination, perseverance, hard work and optimism.

Mr. Rex Baah Antiri of Ghana Education Service (GES) appealed to the government to create an enabling environment that would strengthen women to be part of decision-making, especially at higher levels.

He called for sustained efforts to deal with all forms of violence against women and repressive cultural practices against women to enable them contribute their quota to development.

Participants suggested that efforts should be intensified to address the issues of gender stereotyping, as well as speed up the socialization process and gender equality, adding that the empowerment of women should not be limited to those in towns and cities, but extended to rural women as well.

Mainstreaming Climate Change, Water Security and Gender

Mainstreaming Climate Change, Water Security and Gender
Daily Graphic; Monday, April 19, 2010; Page 26 (Features)
Delali B. Dovie

The Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its 2008 Technical Paper VI on climate change and water, proposes a focus on water security as a basis for sound early adaptation strategy. The report highlights the importance of using water security in delivering immediate adaptation benefits to vulnerable and undeserved populations, towards advancing the Millennium Development Goals, while strengthening adaptative systems and capacity for managing climate risk factors. It is now known that warmer temperatures, and altered patterns of precipitation and runoff, will increasingly compromise the effective management of water resources and water supplies that could technically cripple water security, food systems and natural resources.

This is because water resources remain the major central tendency and hence crosscutting resource of the effects and impacts of climate change, vulnerability and adaptation. Similarly, it is expected that the vulnerability of water resources and challenges of water insecurity will impact society through gender relations, culturally, socio-politically economically and in decision making. Imbalances in gendered responses to impacts in health, hygiene and sanitation sectors as well as gendered conflicts and violence, will be experienced with complementary adaptative strategies.

These attributes have been found to largely charaterise the climate change and variability impacts status of the three northern regions of Ghana.

Water Security

Water security has been defined as, “the reliable availability of an acceptable quantity and quality of water for health, livelihoods and production, coupled with an acceptable level of water-related risks.” Water security is not simply about the availability of water and accompanying declining supplies, but also about issues of access, use, ad safety. Fundamental human and national sovereignty rights characterize the access to water and imping equity and affordability where gendered dimensions are of critical importance.

Thus, the concept of water security imbibes social and political decision making on use in the context of competing demands. Therefore the issues of availability in the form of surface or ground water are physically and technically imposed as they become the immediate entry point, or exposure to climate change stressors.

The problems of gender often arise on access and use, determined mainly by political, social and economic factors. The impacts of climate change and variability will in no doubt play a major roles in changing physical and political economy facets of water resources and water.

Therefore, water policy needs to be more proactive and adaptable to social concerns of who has access and to what extent, and also who makes the decision. This means that with the changing face of the climate and hence water resources and water (demand and supply). Water policy must be targeted to avoid marginalization of certain vulnerable groups (e.g. women).

Impacts and Gender

It has been established that although the impacts of climate change and variability through water stress and insecurity will impact both gender, women will bear the most brunt. This is because research ash shown that historically, women have evolve their own livelihood strategies and coping mechanisms around water, thus establishing a cultural tie that if disrupted, will lead to devastating outcomes.

Additionally, the differential work of women, limited control and lack of tenure over production and diminished access to common coping mechanisms, as well as restricted mobility, amplify the impact of disasters for them.

Yet those deficiencies under normal conditions would have been expected to complement the role of their male counterparts. Therefore the environmental change science community on human dimensions foresees a scenario whereby once women are supported to develop their resilience in relation to climate change induced water insecurity, men and the rest of society will be better adapted.

However, policy and development interventions to make this happen will depend on information from the scientific community for which Gender Analysis or Gender Profiling have been used in recent times. Through such tools, compilation on some impacts on women have been revealed as:

1. Ensuing food insecurity and especially unavailability influences food consumption patterns that are often gender differentiated, favouring men and allowing more access than women.
2. In farming communities, the loss of assets and entitlements of women are a common phenomenon as they often failed to bounce back due to limited livelihood options.
3. In water-stressed and drought-prone areas, women tend to allocate more effort to domestic water collection as they will usually do and in the process, fail to balance the times and energy available for productive work, leading to the loss of income and thus often resulting in poverty.
4. Flood is one important aspect of climate change that has been established to increase the workload of women due to recovering and rescuing of assets, intense cleaning, resources mobilisation and maintenance in addition to the house chores. When this happens, it often leads to reduced opportunities available for productive work and at times women labourers may lose sources of paid work due to flooded fields.
5. Whilst mass migration as a result of climate change impacts (e.g. droughts) have been downplayed, a male out-migration puts added burden on women to mage assets including land whilst female out-migration exposes women to other forms of risk.
6. Increased incidence of Urinary Tract Infection (UTI) related diseases have been reported among women during extended flood periods, especially the elderly as they eat less and drink less to limit visitations to public latrines due to deteriorated sanitation caused by water influx.
7. Extended draught years have also been found to far impact on school enrolment or retention rates of girls than boys as several hours are spent daily in search od water and food.

Mainstreaming

The enhancement of the adaptative capacity of vulnerable people, promotion of early adaptation action and laying the foundation for long-term investment infrastructure that respond to water insecurity within social contexts are important foe water security. These are expected to increase the resilience to climate change thus forming the basis for adaptation, planning and mainstreaming of other sectors’ policies in the water sector. It has been argued that among the shortcomings of development programmes on climate change adaptation are issues of gender and poverty, often captured as an afterthought or as seperate. However, their inclusion at project conception will permit integration in the design, implementation and monitoring and evaluation.

It is important that programmes in adaptation take in consideration the differing needs of men and women and associated socio-cultural realities at all phases for effectiveness and sustainability. In addition, because women’s rights face violation in disaster processes, the assessments of differential and heterogeneous vulnerabilities across diverse demographic categories will be crucial.

In conclusion, the contextualisation of climate change within everyday interfacing geographies of vulnerability, ascertains the role of pre-existing, coupled human-environment systems of physical and social space that serve as basis for mainstreaming in policy formulation for adaptation.

Women Farmers Appeal for Support

Women Farmers Appeal for Support
Daily Graphic, Tuesday, 16 March, 2010; (Gender and Children), Page 11
Alhandu Abdul Hamid, Tango

Women are the most predominant force in the Agricultural sector with about 87 per cent involved in food production.

Although Agriculture is the backbone of the country’s economy and contributes 80 per cent to total national revenue, women in the sector lack access to and control over productive resources such as land livestock, they also lack access to credit opportunities and these factors contribute to their low standards of living.

Women farmers in the Tallensi/Nabdan District of the Upper East Region, who are facing similar problems, have appealed to the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) to support them with agricultural extension services.

The farmers who are heads of households in the communities in the district, indicated that the providing them with these services will not only help to sustain their farming activities but will also ensure food security for their households.

Speaking to the Daily Graphic at the forum organized by Action Aid in collaboration with BONATADU, a local non-governmental organization based in the Upper East Region, the secretary of Laamtaaba Women’s group, Madam Veronica Gbandaan said Female –headed-house-holds in the region face a lot of challenges.

She noted that apart from the challenge of getting agricultural extension services, they were also faced with the problem of getting bullock plough and tractor services to prepare their fields.

The officer in charge of Food Right and Climate Change of Action Aid Ghana, Mr. Joseph Degbedzui said action aid and BONATADU share a common vision of eradicating poverty in the country.

He said a world without poverty and injustices would enable people live dignified lives hence their commitment to work with people who were excluded in their communities to achieve their development challenges. He mentioned some of the communities as Kulpeliga, Datoko, Sheaga, Winkogo-Dapore, Numgu and all in the Tallensi /Nabdam District.

An officer from the MOFA in the Tallensi/Nabdam District, Mr. Bernard My-Issah said a desk, had been specifically set up by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) to cater for the specific needs of women.

He said MOFA had a Bullock Farm project which provides Bullock farm services as well as seeds to and fertilizer to beneficiaries to cultivate soya beans ,rice, tomato and sorghum ,who will after harvesting ,adding that it was a full cost recovery programme and urged the women to take advantage of the programme to improve their livelihood.

The Tallensi /Nabdam District coordinating Director Mr.Fuseini Alhassan said even though the assembly was faced with financial constraints due to the peculiar nature of the group, it was prepared to offer them free tractor services if they were prepared to fuel the tractors.

He thanked Action Aid Ghana for their continuous support, and added that for the past four years, they have been supporting the District in the area of agriculture, education and health which has seen conditions improving for the people in the District.

Celebrating Women-An Example of a Women Entrepreneur

Celebrating Women-An Example of a Women Entrepreneur
Daily Graphic; Wednesday, March 10, 2010; Page 7
Vicky Wireko

Monday, March 8, was a special to women the world over. It is the day specifically set aside by the United Nations to celebrate the economic, political and social achievements of women.

Whereas elsewhere the day is celebrated with the exchange of gifts and flowers for women in appreciation of their roles and achievements, in Ghana, no official symbolic celebration in the real sense of recognizing achievements prevails.

However, according to a statement issued by the ministry of women and children affairs MOWAC, activities including a football gala among women’s groups, a cleanup exercise, symposium and exhibition have been lined up. Is the meaning of the day lost to us?

In my own small way, to celebrate the economic achievements of women in our society, l have decided to dedicate this column this week to the generality of the hardworking Ghanaians women that in many ways remains the toast of the society.

Very resourceful and resilient, many have held their families and their countries together in times of hardships .the irony however that is these people who are always on the line in times of conflict, discrimination, sexual violence, poverty, diseases and intimidation.

So as the global celebration caught up with us this year have decided to single out and showcase the entrepreneurial spirit of mother and a wife, Mrs. Awurabena Okra, whose success story in business continues to be a source of inspiration to many. Her resourcefulness has today become a case study for polytechnic students and young entrepreneurs who fall under the umbrella of National Board for Small Scale Industry (NSSSI).

A graduate of the University of Ghana and a postgraduate certificate holder from the University of Cape Coast, Awurabena left classroom teaching in the early eighties to pursue a past time which she had nurtured from childhood.

A risk one may have cautioned her at the time but no, risk taking is the hallmark of a successful entrepreneur .and so without any looking back, she forged on and successfully combined her god-given talent in stitching and a family trait in entrepreneurship (which she picked up from her mother) to create a full blown clothes and textile industry known today as Winglow at East Legon, Accra.

With a humble beginning of one sewing machine in her spare bedroom, and a determination to do something to supplement her family’s budget during those hardship days of the early 1980’s,Winglow has expanded so much that it now has 24 industrial sewing machines among several other machinery needed in the textile industry.

Awurabena has given lifetime occupations to many young men and women who have undergone training at her hands at Winglow Ltd and who are training others to manage their own dressmaking businesses. Currently the company employs 30 people on full-time basis. So how Mrs. Okra has nurtured past time made it to such celebrated heights in the textile and fashion industry?

Winglow started as a small outfit sewing for individuals and later for such big organizations as the Police, Military, private companies and some corporate institutions.

With time, she ventured into production on large scale and exporting finished goods to the US, Europe and some other parts of Africa. Today, the company designs its own materials with the Ghanaian symbols which make them unique and attractive to the export market.

Awurabena's venture into entrepreneurship has paid off well. She has won many local and international awards to her credit. In 2001, she won the International Award for her Quality and Commitment from Business Initiative Directives.

This was followed closely in 2002 by another award for Technology and Quality from Trade Leaders Club International. The awards she has picked up locally include the Mensah Sarbah Hall Alumni Celebrity Personality for 2003, the Ministry of Trade and Industry Bronze Award in 2004 for Entrepreneurship in Fashion and Export in 2005 from Accra Girls Secondary School.

As resourceful as she is, Awurabena has since 1997 participated in Trade Fairs and Exhibitions in countries such as USA, India, Angola, Namibia, Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone and Liberia. At home, she participated in Fairs organized by the Ghana Trade Fairs Authority, the Association of Ghana Industries AGI), and the Eastern Regional Coordinating Council in Koforidua.

She has bettered herself by attending many international and local training courses both at home and abroad. Through these training sessions, she has been tutored in management and finance, entrepreneurship, small and medium enterprise, export, and machine embroidery.

She has in turn put some of the knowledge acquired from these training sessions to the benefit of young of young entrepreneurs and students from some tertiary institutions through facility visits to the Winglow factory and the provision of mentorship to some. She currently serves as a mentor to for some student members of AISEC at the University of Ghana, Legon.

The example of Winglow Ltd is a case of celebration for the simple reason that it has changed the face of textile manufacturing in our country and contributed to the training of our young ones to be the masters of their own businesses while giving employment to many others. And what better time to highlight this celebration than a time when the world the world is celebrating the achievements of women.

Years back when one heard or spoke about textiles industries, eyes were fixed on those multinational textile companies who dealt in our local designs.

Then later some large-scale local textiles industries came on board. But not anymore. Today, companies like Winglow Clothes and Textiles Ltd are busy in the design and production of quality clothing and embroided fabrics.

These fabrics that are exclusive, with excellent quality and are elegant by all standards manufactured specifically for both the local and exports markets. That has been the achievement of a resourceful Ghanaian woman, Awurabena Okra.

Like many other women working in the quiet and yet contributing in their own small ways to the economic ,social and political dynamics of our society, Monday was a day set aside to celebrate them as role models and clear examples for other women to aspire to their heights.
So on the occasion like this, we should not just be organizing clean exercise, football galas and talk shows. It is the time of the year that role models are played up.

It is the time we celebrate all women in general but give a special place to showcase in particular those women who have contributed to our economic, social and political successes through their own individual and corporate achievements. That should be the focus of the yearly International Day of the Woman. Happy Anniversary to the women of Ghana.

Women Sweep Awards

Women Sweep Awards
Daily Graphic, Monday, February 22, 2010; Page 57
Adwoa Buahema

Out of 30 entrepreneurs who participated in a rigorous three-week training exercise, 15 qualified to partake in a competitive 13-week TV reality show for a winning prize that will uplift their business game.

In a novel state-of-the-art Bullseye Marketing initiative dubbed Lift Your Game (LYG), women swept five final positions.

This is the first of its kind known in Ghana, LYG’s goal is to unleash business potential and create at least 100 new direct and indirect jobs in Ghana.

The initiative responds to several present and pressing market needs across Africa, explore real yet often elusive basic requirements in business, commands attention and indulgence from seasoned practitioners, questions prohibitively rigid credit policies for MSMEs in our financial institution, and challenges the ordinary folk in the informal sector to dare ‘fall off their cliff’ and glide into astounding returns.

And astounding indeed have been the results. The participants, who came from a diverse mix of ages, locations and industries, interacted with a team f experienced local resource persons chosen for their extensive filed knowledge, experienced, proven integrity and track record.

They expressed profound satisfaction and unqualified gratitude to the organisers, first for a uniquely enriching learning experience, and secondly for the positive exposure the programme has brought to their businesses.

Transformed through the renewal of their business perspectives, self-esteem and confidence, many of these participants have already taken new actions such as cutting down on production costs with compromising value, improving staff and client relations, streamlining legal and financial processes, strategic marketing and targeted selling, offering free services alongside the optimisation of sales, and pursuing strategic alliances which have significantly increased returns, even up to a projected 400 per cent increase.

Of particular interest, however, is the impressive performance of the female contestants which highlights an issue of global development interest: Empowering women.

Out of a total of nine women, five of them took the finalist position by storm. The Guest of Honour at the ceremony, the Minster of Trade, Miss Hannah Tetteh, congratulated the finalists for demonstrating exceptional business acumen.

They were: Vida Sarpong, CEO of Visap Seafood Enterprise, who is in the business of fish processing and distribution; Rosemond Asamoah, CEO of Women’s World Beauty, in the business of personal grooming and care; Christine Osie Doe of Unique Coffee Shop who processes mango jam and distributes to retail stores; Horlase Anku is a moringa farmer who wants to extend the benefits of moringa to her community; Jessie Bartels, who won the competition, is the CEO of Renom Food Farm, a mushroom and grasscutter farming company in Dodowa.

A panel of judges accounted for 70 per cent of votes, while the general public carried 30 per cent.

So given equal opportunities and socio-economic incentives, are women better entrepreneurs?

A study using an Austrian economic model of entrepreneurship analsyed why women in enterprise is still a relatively untapped economic resource. It discussed a list of obstacles women face in entrepreneurship process such as lack of role models, type of education, gendering of entrepreneurship, weak social status, competing demands on time (such as family responsibilities), and access to finance.

In response to research results by the Centre of Asia Pacific Studies on GE Money Bank (GEMB) targeted women, whose anecdotal evidence showed continued to be disadvantaged because of their gender, with many parents, especially in the rural areas, still preferring to send males to school, often at the expense of females; and in 2006, partnered with Let’s Go Foundation, a non-profit organization that focuses on entrepreneurship education, to develop its corporate citizenship programme that focuses on empowering women through entrepreneurship.

They created a curriculum for entrepreneurship training programme specifically tailored to the needs of would-be women entrepreneurs, and partnered with other women groups to implement the newly devised curriculum.

The goal was to teach women to venture into entrepreneurship even before finishing school so that they could become, after schooling, not job seekers but job providers.

Curiously, in the same year, out of 40 countries studied, the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) 2006 discovered that only in the Philippines were women significantly more active in starting up businesses than men. Could this be a result of the developmental initiatives to uplift their quality of life and that of others, while generating the revenue of the Philippines?

In Ghana, it is recorded that women more often satisfy loan obligation than their male counterparts, yet they continue to face rigid read tape, counterproductively high interest rates, and sometimes rejection by financial institutions.

Often the industries chosen by women, primarily retail, education and other services are perceived to be less important for economic growth and development than the male predominated high technology and manufacturing industries. But the trade-offs of these “less important” trades, both tangible and intangible, are enormous for communities.

By all count, Lift Your Game is innovative, proactive, powerful, relevant and spot-on responsive, and needs to be sustained to enrich our society; and certainly, such laudable initiatives require committed partnerships with financial institutions to thrive.

Would our established financial institutions be willing to seriously bank on MSME’s, specifically women entrepreneurs, as exemplified in the Philippines to encourage them to create jobs?

But be it as may, more and more women are venturing into venture capital. With training they are better poised to embrace and overcome some of the gnawing bottlenecks in today’s market for MSMEs in general, and women in particular, and Bullseye Marketing is committed to helping transform those who dare to start into successful job creators through cutting edge entrepreneurial training.

Lift Your Game was sponsored by MTN and supported by the BDS Fund. Bullseye Marketing is also the brainchild of the popular, award-winning “M’asem” programme on TV 3.

ABANTU selected for UNIFEM grant

ABANTU selected for UNIFEM grant
Daily Graphic, Thursday, 21st January, 2010; Page 11, (Gender & Children)

ABANTU for Development, a gender and policy advocacy organization based in Ghana, is one of the six organizations in sub-Saharan Africa selected as recipients of United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM’s) Catalytic Grant for Gender Equality for the 2009 grant cycle.

The other beneficiary organizations are from Cameroun, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal and Uganda. The Fund’s Catalytic Grant category is one of two types of high-impact grants designed to advance innovative programmes which focus on women’s economic and political empowerment at local and national levels worldwide.

UNIFEM announced in a press release in New York this week that the new UNIFEM-managed mutli-lateral Fund for Gender Equality received 543 applications for the Catalytic Category from across the world and 27 were selected in 26 countries- 89 per cent led by civil society organizations and 11 per cent by government agencies.

The recently established Fund is designed to advance innovative programmes aimed at accelerating efforts to advance commitments to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the Beijing Platform for Action, the UN Conventional on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and other global and regional agreements.

The recipients represent broad regional and thematic diversity. Their initiatives range from supporting women in the informal sector to increasing greater political participation by women. Initiatives also focus on women facing hazards of food security and climate change to indigenous women and those in high-risk groups, such as women affected by HIV and AIDS.

Women make money out of trash

Women make money out of trash
Daily Graphic, Friday, 1st January, 2010; Page 19, (News)
Abdul Aziz

One hundred and eighty women have undergone a training programme to enable them to recycle plastic waste into handbags for sale in supermarkets.

The project, known as Trashes for Treasure, is being provided for women, especially young girls, under the auspices of Students in Free Enterprises (SIFE).

The project, which is aimed at women empowerment, recycles trash such as plastic and metal waste to manufacture bags, door mats and the metal waste to mould sculptures.

Sixty of the trainees were drawn from Abokobi and its surrounding areas in the Ga East Municipal Assembly to empower the young girls and discourage them from emigrating to the urban centres in search of no-existent jobs.

The remaining 120 women were drawn from the campus of the Institute of Professional Studies who are required to use innovating ways of creating employment for themselves when they graduate from the institute instead of waiting for employment from the government.

Mr. Frnacis Antwi, the Coordinator of the IPS branch of SIFE, in an interview said the branch undertook the training programme in collaboration with Rural Women Support Network based in Abokobi and Village Network, also a local NGO.

He said Students in Free Enterprises was an initiative of an American who loved and worked in Ghana and experienced the harrowing experiences of women had to undergo to secure training and macro-credit to start their own income-generating ventures.

He said SIFE, therefore, attached great importance to the granting of macro-credit facilities to rural and urban poor to start their businesses.

He said currently a Fulani herdswoman had been selected from Abokobi to be used as a model in the establishment of a diary plant for the manufacture of ice cream and yoghurt.

Mr Antwi said the project to turn fresh cow milk into yoghurt, if patronized, could be replicated across the country to help eradicate poverty and break its cycle in the rural areas.

The Coordinator expressed the hope that when the rural areas provided the enabling environment for the youth to earn a livelihood, it would discourage them from migrating to urban centres in search of jobs.

Mr. Antwi appealed to the youth, especially those in the rural areas, to learn a trade or acquire a profession instead of migrating to urban centres to look for non-existent jobs, which often landed them in bad company with its attendant antisocial activities such as indulging in pornography and prostitution.

Launch of Winning Songs: Changing Representations of Women in Popular Music

Launch of Winning Songs: Changing Representations of Women in Popular Music

Alison Roadburg*

On Saturday, 21st November 2009 the Launch of Winning Songs: Changing Representations of Women in Popular Music event was held at Alisa Hotel, Accra. This event was sponsored by the Pathways of Women’s Empowerment Research Project Consortium (RPC), West Africa Hub of the Center for Gender Studies and Advocacy (CEGENSA), and the University of Ghana. The purpose of the event was to share the three winning songs from a contest launched in April with the public. The competition looked for song entries that counter the stereotypical roles in which women are seen in the popular music industry. (Left to right: Dr Awo Asiedu, Kwabena Quaku and Prof. Akosua Adomako Ampofo. Photo Credits: Akofa A. Anyidoho)

Today, there are many songs that objectify women sexually, and that reinforce the need to be submissive, or that place them solely in the domestic sphere. The reality is that women have many characteristics, talents and responsibilities that are often ignored. Since the media and popular culture play such a large and influential role in our lives, we need to use these vehicles to transform the negative images and depictions of women. The Women in Popular Music project of the West Africa RPC launched the contest to catalyze such transformation.


After assessing the 26 submissions including 2 by women, a judging committee of 9 people from varying backgrounds and expertise chose the winning three songs based on a set of criteria that captured the lyrical strength, musical quality and innovation. Kwabena Quaku’s ‘As Long As You Are a Woman’, won the first place prize, Osei Korankye’s song, ‘Emmaa Mmo’ came in second and Born Africans, ‘Equal Rights’ was adjudged third. All artists were awarded a recording of their song, and the winner, Kwabena Quaku was also granted a music video.

The launch was informative, moving and inspiring. Ms. Jessica Opare-Saforo, from Citi FM was the MC for the event and she eloquently introduced the performers and various speakers.

(Jessica Opare-Saforo introduces Bibi Brew; Photo Credits- Geoffrey Buta)

The Pro-Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Professor Kwesi Yankah made some comments about the way in which women are represented in popular culture and noted the importance of the University coming into town and linking up with those on the ground in their research.

Professor Takyiwaa Manuh, the Convener of the West Africa Hub of Pathways of Women’s Empowerment RPC, introduced project to the gathering. She explained that it is a under a five year contract sponsored by the UK Department for International Development and the Norwegian Foreign Affairs ministry which seeks to explore the complex pathways that women around the world have traveled to empower themselves. (Prof. Takyiwaa Manuh, speaking about Pathways WE RPC at the event the Photo Creidts: Kwabena Danso)

Professor Akosua Adomako Ampofo, the head of CEGENSA introduced the Centre, explaining its mandate, areas of specialty and functions at the University of Ghana. She explained the purpose of the Popular Music Project highlighting the importance of the song competition. She drew on some artists, such as Miriam Makeba and Bono from U2 as socially conscious messages, as well as successful musicians.

Two students from the University of Ghana recited poetry on women’s empowerment and another student from SOS Hermann Gmeiner International College sang a song titled, “Amazing.” Ms. Bibie Brew, a veteran musician, excited the audience with strong rendition of some popular old tunes.

The evening continued with the performance of all three songs as well as Kwabena Quaku’s song video. ‘As Long As You Are a Woman’ highlights influential and prominent female figures who are appreciated members of society because of their work and expertise--not their bodies. The audience surely felt the energy from all of the performances, and many left their seats to dance!

(Kwabena Quaku singing "As Long as You are a Woman" at the Event)
(Photo Credits: Geoffrey Buta)

Pathways and CEGENSA is bringing about change. The time has come to look at the messages that are being spread in today’s popular music and to look closely at how these differ from reality!! ‘The Launch of Winning Songs: Changing Representations of Women in popular Music’, was a gateway to this change, but it should not stop there. We need to facilitate the composition of songs that positively reflect women and their diverse roles in society.

(Dancing to old tune renditions by Bibi Brew; Photo Credits; Geoffrey Buta)

(The Ghana Dance Ensemble dancing 'Adowa,' a local dance of the Akans.)

*Alison Roadburg is a recent graduate of McGill University, Canada and is research intern at The Center for Gender Studies and Advocacy (CEGENSA) at the University of Ghana, Legon.

Money allocated for gender equity hardly used

Money allocated for Gender Equity Hardly Used

Accra, Oct. 15, 2009 - GNA - A Research conducted by the Ghana Partnership Resource Review, a research group, has indicated that out of US$3.21 million allocated to the social protection sector, only US$390,000 was used for the intended purpose.

This meant that although key donors adopted a gender mainstreaming approach, it was difficult for them to concretely determine what impact their aid was having on Gender Equity (GE) in the country. Addressing participants attending a workshop organized on Thursday by the Institute of Local Government Studies (ILGS) as part of its 10th anniversary celebrations, Ms Afua Ansre, National Programme Coordinator of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), attributed the lack of commitment to GE as one of the main reasons for the slow rate of development in the country.

She said Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB), if properly implemented, would bring tremendous improvement to the lives of women who constituted the bulk of the marginalized and the poor. Gender Responsive Budgeting represents a special type of policy-making that enables budgets or money allocation to become effective tools for advancing gender equity or to ensure that women participated fully or advanced in all sectors of society.

Ms Ansre called on the government to have to a detailed plan for women in the country and to ensure that requirements for the plan reflected in the nation's budget especially at the district level. "According to the Institute of Social, Statistical and Economic Research (ISSER), the least area of government investment in 2008 was in the area of agriculture, and that is where you find the poorest people of Ghana - women crop farmers," she added. The Coordinator bemoaned the high level of maternal and infant mortality in the country, the significant number of girls dropping out of school especially in the rural areas, and the abysmal number of women parliamentarians the nation has.

She intimated that UNIFEM was in the process of building teams of experts to help support the growing desire for GRB at the district and national levels.

Highlighting the importance of GRB, Mr Roland Mordey, Acting Chief Director of the Ministry of Women and Children's Affairs (MOWAC), said this included the provision of feedback to the government on whether it was meeting the needs of the marginalized and the realization of women's rights. Mr Mordey said it had also been established that the good implementation of GRB led to real growth in the Gross Domestic product of any nation.

He said Ghana's experience on GRB started recently, adding that in 2008, MOWAC received cabinet approval to pilot the implementation of the GRB in the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Food and Agriculture. To this effect, MOWAC put in place all the needed requirements to ensure that next year, GRB would be implemented in the three ministries as well as all Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies whereby they would allocate a percentage of their financial allocations to support gender programmes.

"To this effect, MOWAC in August 2009 organised a GRB training workshop for 16 selected MDAs including 45 participants from the budgeting and planning sections of the MDAs who were trained in Gender Concepts, Gender Analysis, and Budgeting Systems in the country," he said.

The workshop, which was under the theme "Making Local Level Budgeting More Gender Responsive", was attended by representatives from the Ministries and other civil society organizations.

Source: Ghana News Agency

How Nkrumah Empowered Women

How Nkrumah Empowered Women
Daily Graphic, Saturday, September 26, 2009, Page 32
Salome Donkor

The role of women in politics and other public offices is one of the burning governance issues, largely because of the perceived and acknowledged potential and contribution of women to governance.

A recent study by Dr Beatrix Allah-Mensah of the Political Science Department of the University of Ghana, Legon, on Women in Politics and Public Life indicated that there was ample evidence to substantiate the indispensable role women played in the prelude to independence an immediately after it.

The study revealed that role of women was evident in they support they gave to the main political party of the time, the Convention People’s Party (CPP), and it is also on recode that women traders were keen supporters of the CPP government and also offered financial assistance and supportive services.

Soon after the formation of the CPP in 1949, for instance some of them, notably Akua Asabea, stood shoulder to shoulder with their male counterparts like Kofi Baako and Sacki Scheek as they toured the country and addressed large rallies to spread the message of ‘Independence Now’ for Ghana.

Hanna Cudjoe, for instance, did not only heroically rally the people behind the independence struggle, but also went a step ahead in establishing day care centres and day nurseries.

She worked extensively in the northern Ghana under the direction of Dr Nkrumah, who gave her the task of convincing women in certain parts of northern Ghana to discard some outmoded cultural [practices] in the area.

During the early period of the struggle in May 1951, the CPP appointed Hanna Cudjoe, Ama Nkrumah, Letitia Quaye and Sophia Doku as propaganda secretaries with the responsibilities of organizing the CPP Women’s League.

Under the League, the women were divided into subsections at branch and ward levels. They organized rallies, dances, picnics as strategies to mobilise more people for early independence delayed by the colonialists for about a century.

Hanna Cudjoe was the Head of the Ghana Women’s League, and in 1960, the Women’s League and the Ghana Federation of Women, led by Evelyn Amartefio were merged to form the Nation Council of Ghana Women (NCGW) to replace the women’s section of the CPP.

The women’s movement was inaugurated by Dr Nkrumah on September 10, 1960 as the only organization under which all Ghanaian women were to be organized to help achieve government post-independent political, social, economic and educational development of Ghana. The party leadership, therefore, institutionalised the initiative by making constitutional provisions for women’s league at the branch and ward levels as the main organising framework for women in the party. It was, therefore, not surprising that the party gave credit to women for the internal solidarity, cohesion and success of the CPP.

Mention could also be made of the role of Dr Mrs Letitia Obeng an educationist, and other women who were nurses, broadcasters, judgers and lawyers who became part and parcel of the independence struggle.

Though not visible like their male counterparts in the frontline, the female politicians, nonetheless, provided a vanguard force, rallying their families, communities, trade and various interest group s to join the struggle for national independence.

Allah-Mensah’s writing on ‘Women and Politics in Ghana 1993-2003,’ cited in a book titled “One Decade of Liberal State” and edited by Kwame Boafo-Arthur (2007), states that the action was largely responsible for the development of the women’s wing of the party and also for youth organisation. She records that women were efficient organisers who could bring thousands of people together for a rally at very short notice.

A paper written by Ms Joyce Rosalind Aryee, the Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Chamber of Mines, on the “Contribution of Women to Ghana’s Independence and Democratic Governance,” dated March 2007 and quoted in the study by Dr Allah-Mensah, pointed out that Dr Nkrumah’s political success was based on the foundation set for women by the CPP.

It said in 1949, many benevolent and mutual associations, credit unions and market voluntary groups sprang up and became staunch supporters of Dr Nkrumah and the CPP in general. It said those, though were not the forefront of the independence struggle, were involved in activities which were politically significant.

The contribution of women to the political struggle caught the eyes of the leadership of CPP and by May 1951, the party had appointed four women, namely Letitia Quaye, Sophia Doku, Hanna Cudjoe and Ama Nkrumah as press secretaries charged with the duty of organizing women.

In spite of the roles of women in the political struggle, there was no woman in Cabinet when Ghana attained republican status, but the contribution of women to Ghanaian politics after independence, resulting in the introduction of the Representation of the People (Women Members) Bill in 1960. The bill was passed and it received the Governor-general’s assent of June 16, 1960.

Through the act, 10 women were elected unopposed as Members of Parliament (MPs) in June 1960. They were Susana Al-Hassan, Ayanori Bukaru and Victoria Nyarko, all representing the Northern Region, Sophia Doku and Mary Korateng, Eastern Region and Regina Asamany, Volta Region.
The rest were Grace Ayensu and Christiana Wilmot, Western Region, Comfort ASamoah, Ashanti Region and Lucy Anim, Brong Ahafo. That made Ghana one of the first African countries to introduce a quota system for women.

In 1965, Dr Nkrumah appointed Madam Susana Al-Hassan as the Minister of Social Welfare and Community Development, while others were appointed as district commissioners.

Over the past five decades after Ghana’s independence, the representation of women in local and national level politics as well as in others areas of decision making indicated that there is still much to done to ensure an effective representation of women in politics and other equally important sectors.

MOWAC to assist women in elections

Ministry to assist women in elections
Daily Graphic, Saturday, 8th August, 2009, Page 11, Gender and Children
Rebecca Quaicoe-Duho

The Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs is working on a programme to identify at least 20 potential women in each district to prepare them for the 2010 district and 2012 elections.

The women will be given the needed training and support which will enable them to compete effectively with their male counterparts during the elections to help increase the participation of women in decision-making positions in the country.

The sector Minister, Ms Akua Sena Densua, who made this known in a speech read on her behalf at the opening of the fourth biennial conference of District Assembly Women in Accra, said there was the need ‘to surmount the challenges that have restrained women from active participation in decision-making for so long.’

The conference, which was organized by ABANTU for Development and ActionAid-Ghana, on the theme, “Expanding space for women’s empowerment,” brought together women from across the country to brainstorm on topics such as ‘Critical gender issues in climate change debate,’ ‘Critical gender issues in income security,’ and ‘Critical gender issues in the oil and gas sector.’

The minister’s speech, read on her behalf by the Gender Officer at the Ministry, Ms Evelyn Agyemfra Asiedu, indicated that the government was also reviewing the affirmative action policy which is aimed at increasing women’s participation in decision-making to 40 per cent to positively increase the number of women in governance.

She said the attainment of most of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), including goal three, which talks about the promotion of gender equality and women’s empowerment, goal four, which talks about reducing under-five [years old] mortality and goal fiver, which talks about the improvement of maternal health, all required the active collaboration of women for their successful implementation.

The Head of ABANTU for Development, Dr Rose Mensah-Kutin, said organizing such conferences was necessary, as gender and local governance issues were directly linked to broader national contextual issues.

She said the conference would help create a forum where women could expand the space for self and collective empowerment to enhance participation and effectiveness in their in their own localities, as well as in the overall national governance process.

She said the conference would enable participants to draw strength from one another, as well as forge appropriate strategies to increase women participation in governance.

The Country Direction of ActionAid-Ghana, Ms Adwoa Kwateng-Kluvitse, in an address, said there was an urgent need to address the imbalances in the political power and leadership in the country, saying that political will should be translated into an appropriate legal framework with deliberate special measures to ensure increase of women in all levels of decision-making.

The Member of Parliament for New Juaben, Ms Beatrice B. Boateng, who chaired the opening ceremony, called on the assembly women not to give in their quest for higher political power but to forge ahead even when they are being discouraged by others.

She said the time had come for women to put aside their political affiliations and help one another as women, saying that, “you should see yourselves first as women and should not let politics divide your ranks.”

Analsying changes in women’s work in Ghana

Gender Centre Launches Project
Daily Graphic, Tuesday, May 5, 2009 (Gender and Children) Page 11
Rebecca Quaicoe-Duho

A three-year research project on the changing character of women’s work and its implication for women’s livelihood security has been launched in Accra. The project, known as, “Formalising the informal and informalising the formal: Analsying changes in women’s work in Ghana,” will examine women’s work in two sectors, namely baking and paid domestic work.

Funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the project, which is being undertaken by the Centre for Gender Studies and Advocacy (CEGENSA) of the University of Ghana in three urban centres, namely, Accra, Kumasi and Tamale, seeks to examine the changing nature of work, especially in the banking and domestic sector, with a view to making policy recommendations for improving work condition in the two sectors.

According to the Project Lead Researcher, Dr. Dzodzi Tsikata, the two sectors, one in the formal and the other in the informal economies were illustrations of some important developments in the character of women’s work .

She said both sectors had seen significant changes since the 1990s when economic liberalisation policies began to gain roots, and that domestic work was increasingly being procured through agents and agencies, while on the other hand, the banking sector, traditionally seen as the bastion of formality and long-term employment is changing with the introduction of labour agencies into the sector.

These changes, she said, were taking place in a general context of labour market liberation and the informalisation of work in both developed and developing countries, with these two sectors being illustration of the changing character of women’s livelihood.

She said informal work was becoming more prominent among women across the country, with most women going into hawking, trading, sewing, domestic and other unpaid work, a situation which she said had generated lesser incomes therefore jeopardized their security.

According to her, the country’s labour law favours formal work, but the focus should be looked at since most people were now becoming self-employed and called for equal opportunities for both formal and informal work in the labour laws.

Dr Tsikata, who mentioned some the objectives of the research, said it was to create a gender profile for domestic and banking sectors, as well as for agencies involved in the sectors and to examine the changes in the labour conditions and its implications for employment security and the social security of women workers in the banking and domestic sectors.

She said the study was to explore ways in which reproductive work differentiated women and men’s experiences of change in domestic and banking sectors. The project, she said, would also analyse any relationship between labour legislation and policies and informalisation, and explore the extent to which laws and policies were tackling the challenges of informalisation.
The research, which was undertaken by four female researchers, Dr Nana Akua Anyidoho, Dr Akosua Darkwa, Prof Akosua Adomako Ampofo and Dr. Tsikata, established that most banks sampled, preferred to use agency staff as a way of saving cost.

According to the research, a total o f13 banks in the three research areas which were sampled, also revealed that sourcing for agency staff enabled the banks to focus on their core business.

The research also revealed, among other things, that domestic workers employed through an agent or agencies, normally received better conditions of service than bank staff employed through an agency, although in monitory terms the bankers received better pay conditions.
It further revealed that agencies outsourced more women to the banks and as domestic staff than men.

Liberia Women fighting for Peace

Below is a link to a 20 minute video, "Liberia Women fighting for Peace," produced by Amnesty International. Several women narrate their different experiences during the civil war and their trajectories to rehabilitation, restoration and peace after the war.

Please click here.

For peace,
Akofa.

Emma Sintim-Only female driver in Parliament

Emma Sintim-Only female driver in Parliament
The Mirror, Saturday, March 14, 2009 (Mirror News) Page 34
Emmanuel Adu-Gyamerah

“What a man can do, a woman can do better.” This saying has been the cardinal principle of genders activists, who have for some time snot, been pushing issues about women to the fore and putting in programmes to ensure females rub shoulders with their male counterparts. Now, women are seen doing work which was hitherto considered as the domain of men due to the increasing awareness and encouragement by the government and the civil society about how far women can go in life, only if they could shelve the ancient mentality that the woman’s place is only in the kitchen.

When I first saw 48-year old Emma Sintim hanging around the Member of Parliament (MP) for New Juaben South, Ms Beatrice Bernice Boateng, I though she may be one of those people who trooped to Parliament daily to seek assistance from their MPs.

Little did I know that Madam Sintim was the driver of that female MP. I became curious since all the drivers I had seen MPs over the years were men. How can a female MP be driven by a female driver? That is the question that was asked by a friend I was chatting with. Without waiting for an answer, he exclaimed, “This is real empowerment of women. Soon women will overtake us by the storm.”

Madam Sintim told The Mirror that she learnt driving in 1990 from her late husband and now she is reaping the benefits of her efforts.

The driver, who said she was the Market Queen of the Koforidua Dwaben Serwaa Market, said she had known the MP for the past two years. “I started driving her during the campaign period and I was happy upon winning the election, she decided that I should continue to be her driver.”
Being the only female driver among over 200 drivers chauffeuring the country’s legislators Ms Sintim feels proud to be part of the few Ghanaian women who have taken jobs considered to be men’s preserve.

She is a proud mother of two girls, one of whom has completed the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology and is currently working at the Presbyterian Press in Accra. The other one is currently pursuing higher academic laurels in engineering in China.

She expressed her gratitude to Ms Boateng for giving her the opportunity to have a feel of how Parliament is operated and called on supporters of the various political parties not to consider their political opponents as enemies because she realized that Members of Parliament (MPs) were friends rather than enemies. “What I have seen in Parliament surprises me since the relationship among the various parties is cordial and are always seen eating and chatting together after they have finished performing the day’s parliamentary duties,” she noted.

On why she chose a female to be her driver, Madam Boateng said since the Beijing Declaration of affirmative action, women had been employing a number of tactics to practicalise women and gender issues. She explained that in terms of job opportunities, women were less privileged to secure jobs, saying that it was, therefore, an opportunity to reduce unemployment among women in the country. Madam Boateng noted that women were very careful in every field of endeavour they found themselves in, adding that, that explained why women were not normally involved in accidents.

“My gesture is also a ways of saying thank you to women in New Juaben South Constituency, who overwhelmingly endorsed my candidature in addition to encouraging women to strive to achieve higher laurels in all fields of endeavour, “ she said.

Commitment to Women's Empowerment needed

Daily Graphic, Tuesday, March 10, 2009 (Gender & Children) Page 11
Women’s Empowerment needs Commitment
Salome Donkor

The first world conference on the status of women was held in Mexico City to coincide with the 1975 International Women’s Year, to remind the international community that discrimination against women continued to be a persistent in most pasts of the world.

The conference led to the declaration of United Nations Decade for Women (1976-1985), proclaimed by the General Assembly which launch a new era in global efforts to promote the advancement of women by opening a world-wide dialogue on gender equality.

A process was set in motion to involve deliberation, negotiation, setting objectives, identifying obstacles and reviewing the progress made.

Despite these efforts, many women around the world continue to suffer discrimination and challenges posed by social attitudes and policies that continue to condone and perpetuate violence against women and girls.

The 1992 Constitution of Ghana provides a framework for equality of all persons and outlaws discrimination on the basis on gender/sex. It promises to protect and promote all human rights and also prohibits all harmful customary practices.

However, the Network of Women’s Rights in Ghana (NETRIGHT), a coalition of organizations and individuals advocating for gender equality which made an assessment on issues of concern to women in Africa in 2008, has established that discriminatory practices against women in the name of culture still prevailed in Africa while increasing efforts are being made to address them

Making a statement in Parliament to mark this year’s International Women’s Day on March 8, on the theme, “Women and Men United to end violence against women and girls,” the Member of Parliament (MP) for Twifo Ati Mokwa, Mrs. Elizabeth Amoah-Tetteh, observed that women empowerment continued to be a central feature of the United Nations efforts to address socio-economic and political challenges confronting women across the world.

To add her voice to the calls on the need to get more women involved in politics and decision-making, an American philanthropist, writer and gender activist, Dr Swanee Hunt has urged Ghanaian women to be firm and resolute in the use of the imaginative and visionary qualities to promote the interest of women and other vulnerable groups in the society.

She describe Ghanaian women as energetic people with strong, imaginative and visionary qualities which could take them far if they received that necessary support to develop their capabilities.

Speaking to the Daily Graphic after a meeting with 30 Ghanaian women, made up of parliamentarians, lawyers and representatives from non-governmental organizations, during a three-day visit to the country recently, she said Ghanaian women have made giant strides in national development, despite the challenges.

Dr. Hunt, who is a Lecturer of Public Policy, is committed to the attainment of gender parity, especially as a means to end war and rebuild societies, as well as to alleviate poverty and other forms of human suffering.

She served as President Clinton’s ambassador to Austria from 1993-1997, where she hosted negotiations and international symposia, which focused on stabilizing the neighbouring Balkan states. She had also worked extensively Rwanda, Sudan, Uganda and a little in South Africa and Liberia, and notably with the most strong women all over the world.

Ambassador Hunt was the Founding Director of the Women and Public Policy Programme at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, where she also teaches, “Inclusive Security,” exploring why women are systematically excluded from peace processes and the policy steps needed to rectify the problem. She has conducted research, training and consultations with women leaders in some 60 countries.

She pointed out that as a gender advocate and women’s rights advocate, she decided to visit the country, to learn more about the roles of women in the country.

She described Rwandan women as strong women who played a crucial roles during the ethnic genocide and pointed out that with the Hutsi, Tutsi conflict some key women in Rwanda, namely Inyumba Aloisia and Rose Kabuya, played crucial roles.

Dr Hunt said 14 years after the genocide, Rwanda’s constitution adopted after a referendum held in 2003 guaranteed 30 per cent quota of the 80 seats in the Chambers of Deputies, for women.

The also created women councils in villages where they run offices and they got themselves in the constitutional committee with 30 per cent set aside for women who only contested those seats. Their strategy, she said, worked fantastically and after the country’s 2008 elections, the country became the first nation in the world whose legislative assembly had the majority of women when the ruling party of the ruling government headed by President Kagame endorsed, 35 female candidates in an inter-party coalition, adding that “if you want to look for a mother for Africa, look from Rwanda.”

She said Ghana lagged behind in representation of women in governance, explaining that in the US as of 2008 elections, there are 74 women serving in the current House of Representatives while the Senate had 17 women.

On the perception that ‘politics is a dirty game,’ she said it would continue to be so until women got actively involved and indicated that like other countries, women in the US women would be prodded many times before they will decide about politics.

She said such women should believe in women’s rights and concerns. She advised women not to think that they do not have the capabilities and were not qualified to contest elections and advised women to look at the EMILY’s List that helped to elect progressive female candidates who were pro-choice into office.

EMILY’s List, which is an acronym for “Early Money is Like Yeast,” is a political action committee (PAC) in the United States, founded by Ellen Malcolm in 1984. From the common political saying that, “Early money is like yeast because it helps to raise the dough,” the concept encourages women who want to enter into politics to start mobilising funds early.

Dr. Hunt advised Ghanaian women, who want to contest in elections at both the district assembly and national level to take the decision now by starting to organise immediately, so that they can contest the elections and win.

In another interview, Mrs. Gifty Kleman, the Member of Parliament for Lower West Akyem, who was meeting with Dr. Hunt, described it as fruitful and said it provided a congenial atmosphere for deliberations on women in politics, trafficking and the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325, (UNSC Resolution 1325) relating to women, peace and security.

The Resolution, which tasks the UN Systems and Member States to ensure gender considerations are thoroughly integrated into all aspects of its security platform from conflict prevention to post-conflict reconstruction, was unanimously adopted by the Security Council in October 2000. She said they deliberated on the negative effects of child trafficking in the country and the need to assess the cause of child trafficking in order to come out with workable solutions to the problem

She also said the meeting deliberated on the need for gender advocates to also contest in elections after doing their advocacy work to as serves as an inspiration to women.