‘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.

‘Respect rights of househelps’

‘Respect rights of househelps’
The Ghanaian Times; Friday, April 9, 2010; Page 23; (Regional Diary)
Collins Boateng

The Leadership and Advocacy for Women in Africa (LAWA), a non-governmental organisation that seeks to promote human rights of women in Ghana and in Africa, last week held a consultative seminar on the need to monitor domestic workers in homes.

The Coordinator of LAWA, Mrs. Babara Ayesu, said there is the need for parents and guardians to understand the risk involved in doing domestic work, stressing that domestic workers sometimes are maltreated by their employer, which results in them developing psychological trauma.

She said the country has laws that regulate the right of its citizens, domestic workers are not beneficiaries of such laws, adding that there is need for government and other agencies to make domestic work professional to enable practitioners of the work to enjoy benefits like any other worker.

“The attention of domestic workers is receiving global concern and their maltreatment is regarded as an infringement on their human rights that would soon be redressed internationally,” she stressed.

Mrs. Ayesu said Ghana’s labour law does not check pain that the domestic worker goes through, adding that LAWA would make sure the laws checks the rights of domestic workers to enhance the individual rights in the country.

She said Ghana’s participation in promotion human rights globally has helped the country to partner with other countries like Uganda, Tanzania and other international bodies to address the problem of violation of women’s human rights.

She stated that this year, Ghana would collaborate with the world to redress domestic violence, equitable marital property at divorce and the workplace to enhance women’s freedom globally.

Speaking at the seminar, Ms Adwoa Sakyi, Project Coordinator for the International Union of Food, Agriculture, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and allied workers associations said, there is need for all domestic workers to have right to free themselves from sexual harassment and violence in the workplace, stressing that domestic workers should report all persons who intrude on their rights to the district labour officers for appropriate sanctions.

She said, all domestic workers have the right to form or join trade unions and enjoy collective bargaining, adding that any domestic worker whose right is infringed upon should seek the authorities for redress.

Mrs. Sakyi said the domestic worker has the right to leave just as any government worker, and must be paid accordingly.

She said it is times the country treat domestic workers as professionals because without them there would chaos at their homes and that if we respect and treat them as such, it would help curb poverty and economical downtrends that the country is encountering now.

Women Urged to Participate actively in Governance

Women Urged to Participate actively in Governance
The Ghanaian Times; Friday, March 19, 2010; Page 23
Samuel Opare

The Eastern Regional Director of the NCCE, Mar Eric Bortey, has said that the nature of political campaigns in the country have not helped women to participate actively in the governance of the country since independence. “At certain times too”, he explained, “the language used on certain platforms during campaigns prevent or discourage women to get involved in politics.” Mr. Bortey said this at a two day empowerment workshop for women in all the electoral areas in the Suhum Kraboa Coaltar District (SKCD) at Suhum.

It was organized by the NCCE in collaboration with the World Vision International under the theme “Effective participation of women in decision making at the district assemblies and local level.”
Wrongly too, he said “most people think that any woman who openly joins and participate in political activities is a harlot, witch, man-woman or an iron lady.”

Much has not been achieved in the nation’s decentralization and political agenda since 1988 because of lack of women participation in the local government system, “the NCCE Regional Director stated.

Mr. Bortey therefore challenged women in the country to come out of their shells and take up their place in the nation’s democratic system.

“Do not allow Accra alone to be the seat of government, irrespective of your party affiliation, let us all join hands to move Ghana democracy forward,” he said, pointing out that “women are in the majority but when it comes to decision and participation in the local governance of the nation, they are in the minority.”

Women’s failures in decision making, Mr Bortey said was due to their attitudes toward themselves, societal and family influence, educational background, defeating attitude, traditional/cultural influence and the nature of the political campaign in the country.

Above all he observed that “Women have accepted from time past that politics is for men.” Mr. Bortey appealed to the women to get involved in the local government of the nation because they have a lot to offer to the development of the nation through their participation in decision-making at the local levels. He taught the women how to write manifestos and how to speak in public and advised them to present themselves to be voted for the area, Town, Zonal, Urban and any position in the Local Council elections. “This is where you can learn and build your confidence to attain your vision in Ghana’s political arena” said the NCCE Director.

The Acting District Director of NCCE, Mr. Cephas Kofi Agboada said that the district assembly system is the most competent structure in Ghana because that is the bedrock of the nation and therefore the work of any assembly woman is very important.

He explained that decision-making is a very important process in which women would need to be actively involved if their needs and concerns are to be adequately met.

He said the nation’s district assemblies would be very effective, strong, richer and democratic if the people stop the discrimination but encourage women to get involved in the activities of local government. The programme was chaired by the SKCD Director of CHRAJ, Mrs. Anyeley Ayeng Cole and supported by the queen mother of Suhum, Nana Yaa Sakyibea.

Women in Local Governance Fund coming back

Women in Local Governance Fund coming back
The Ghanaian Times,Wednesday, March 17, 2010; Page 16
Anita Nyarko

The Women in Local governance Fund, now defunct, will be re-launched to support women contesting in local government elections that would be held in September this year.

Mrs. Juliana Azumah-Mensah, Minister for Women and Children Affairs (MOWAC), said this at the opening of the National Gender Forum 2010 in Accra yesterday.

The two-day forum which ends today seeks to promote gender mainstreaming in pro-poor policy formulation and advocacy.

It also aims at creating a platform to engage policy makers, civil society organisations, development practitioners, gender experts and development partners in the programme.

The programme, organized by the Ghana Research and Advocacy Programme is on the theme, “Civic engagement for gender equality and good governance in Ghana: Sharing experience, contesting spaces, renewing commitments.”

She said government realising the need for reinforcement of intervention to support women’s participation in local governance, embarked on programmes and activities that would promote women’s participation in governance.

“The government has incorporated a gender perspective into the national agenda and development priority of the country to promote effective participation of women in governance at all levels of decision making,” she added.

Mrs. Azumah-Mensah said some of the programmes include the organisation of training programmes aimed at building women’s capacities on speech delivery, effective lobbying, advocacy and other leadership skills.

The Minister said the government in its bid to make governance gender responsive has established a national women’s machinery, MOWAC, which is of cabinet status to properly address gender issues and the larger numbers of problems confronting women and children in the country.

She said Ghana’s experience in making governance gender responsive is creating the necessary environment for the protection of women and children’s rights.

The Minister said government has ratified and adopted various international conventions and protocols that promote gender equality, women and children’s right in conformity with the provision of the chapter five of the 1992 Constitution which includes the African chapter on human and people’s rights.

A Senior Development Officer, Corporation of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Garret Pratt, in his address, said Ghana’s journey towards achieving equitable development has witnessed significant interventions in social policies and services such as the Domestic Violence Ac, Spousal Property Rights bill, free maternal and child health policies.

“As Ghana deals with implications of the emerging oil and gas industries, let us work consciously to crystallize and sustain gender equality gains and apply lessons from experience to new issues,” he added.

Gov’t must show commitment to Women’s participation in Politics

Gov’t must show commitment to Women’s participation in Politics
Daily Graphic, Wednesday, 17 March, 2010; Page 16
GNA

The management of the Hunger Project-Ghana has called on the government to show commitment to women’s participation in politics by enforcing the 40 per cent representation of women in the district metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs).

It said the government should allocate special funds for the training, grooming and campaign activities of women parliamentary candidates.

The call was made in a communiqué issued at the end of a national rural forum for selected men and women programme Animators and Epicenter Representatives on the theme: ‘Equal Opportunities : Progress for all’.

A statement issued and signed by Dr. Nana Agyeman-Mensah, Country Director of the Project, said the forum was held at the Odumase –Wawase Epicenter in the Kwahu West Municipality, to mark this year’s International Women‘s Day, which fell on Monday, March 8.

The Communiqué also called on the government to enforce existing laws that had been instituted to protect women and children such as the Domestic Violence Act, the Intestate Succession Law, The Children’s Act other relevant laws through the training of gender sensitive officers at the MMDAs to spearhead the implementation and monitoring of gender based policies.

It called for the establishment of the special scholarship schemes to benefit brilliant needy girls who will otherwise drop out of school after junior high school.

The Communiqué appealed for sponsorship for girls to enroll in nursing and teacher training colleges to increase the number of women professionals who would also serve as role models for girls in the rural areas.

It stressed the need for the use of participatory sensitization approaches that would bring out the negative effects of gender inequality on the spread of HIV and AIDS.

The statement also called for the reconsideration of the of the health policy on ‘non –delivery of babies ‘ by Traditional Birth Attendants, who were still regardless of the policy, offering valuable child delivery services to poor women in remote rural areas, until such time that there were enough rural health facilities and professionals in those areas. The Communiqué called for the improvement in farm gate access roads in food producing areas to address the transportation and distribution challenges of the nation’s food farmers, 80 per cent of whom were women.

It said efforts should be made to provide special subsidized packages for women farmers to encourage them to, and to recognize those who excel in the field of agriculture at special state events, to inspire other women farmers.

The Communiqué called for increased financial and technical support to women’s groups as well as focused steps to introduce into rural areas, simple technologies for processing vegetables and staple food crops to halt post harvest losses, while creating vital job opportunities.

It called for more support to NGOs which utilized sustainable development strategies that created local leadership opportunities for women as well as build local capacity for self reliant development, through the creation of community based animators in critical areas such as sexual and reproductive health, legal literacy, credit management, functional literacy, agricultural extension, HIV and AIDS education, counseling and referral services which benefited women.

DOVVSU Affirms Commitment to Curb Domestic Violence

DOVVSU Affirms Commitment to Curb Domestic Violence

Daily Graphic; Tuesday, MARCH 16, 2010; Page 11 (Gender and Children)
Salome Donkor

Ghana has achieved gains in various areas, including education and development of national laws, policies and programmes aimed at championing the cause of women.

More and more people now understand that gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls is not just a goal but the key to sustainable development, economic growth and peace and security.

However, there is the need to pay more attention to the needs of women and children in the country and women advocates, women groups and related agencies unanimously upheld this view as the world commemorated the International Women’s Day (IWD) on March 8.

A statement from the Ark Foundation, a gender based non-governmental organization, to celebrate the day, pointed out that although legislation such as the Domestic Violence Act, Person’s with Disability Act, Human Trafficking Act, Labour Act, among others, which have been passed, as well as the Affirmative Action Policy Guideline, policies on health, particularly relating to maternal mortality and AIDS, there is still some work to be done.

Media reports indicate that, while there had been advances over the past years to enhance gender equality and the empowerment of women, with the establishment of Domestic Violence Victim Support Unit (DOVVSU) of the Ghana Police Service to expanded to all regional capitals, violence against women continue to be a problem in Ghana. The national prevalence of one in three women having being physically assaulted by an intimate partner still remains unchanged and statistic from the DOVVSU shows that violence against is still unacceptably high.

In support of the fight against all forms of discrimination against women on the occasion of the celebration of the International Women’s Day, the national secretariat of DOVVSU, on behalf of the Inspector general of Police, has reaffirmed the DOVVSU commitment to protect and promote the welfare of women by preventing, apprehending, and prosecuting abusers of women and children’s rights.

A statement signed by the coordinating Director of the Unit, Chief Superintendent Elizabeth Dassa, said “We celebrate their commitment to improve on the lot of their families, communities an the Ghanaian society at large and also seize this occasion to doff our hats to our dedicated stakeholders who have been consistent in the support of our efforts.’’

The statement said violence against women and gender-based violence were still rife in the society and such cases accounted for three-quarters of the over 95,000 cases so far recorded by the Unit.

It said Ghanaians should remember that violence against women and gender-based violence fragrantly violated the fundamental human rights of women and girls, as they impacted negatively on their survival and development and urged all to resolve to co-operate with the unit or any police station to arrest perpetrators.