Ahead of the 2010 District Assembly and Unit Committee Elections in Ghana, ActionAid Ghana (AAG), in collaboration with the Institute of Local Government Studies (ILGS), has developed a training manual designed to prepare potential Assembly women and women’s groups for effective participation in good governance at the Assembly or local level.
The manual, entitled: “WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP-Training Manual for Assembly Women and Women Leaders” is aimed at providing a tool for equipping women with the requisite skills and knowledge to enable them to participate confidently and effectively in local decision-making processes. The ultimate aim is to increase the number of female Assembly members in the country, and to ensure their effectiveness in the Assemblies and in other leadership roles.
The manual is divided into two (2) parts with seventeen (17) modules. The first part focuses on the content of the District Assembly and the way it functions and the second part focuses on the relevant skills and knowledge women need to engage with the Assembly and other institutional structures and processes.
The Chief Executive Officer of Upper East based Centre for Sustainable Development Initiatives (CENSUDI), Francisca Issaka, in her remarks as chairperson for the occasion held in Savelugu in the Savelugu-Nanton District of the Northern Region, said good governance was good for Ghana especially when it is seen as a shining example of the best practises of democracy in Africa.
She was however quick to add that, even though good governance is good, over 70% of Ghanaian women and children were still not involved in decision-making both at the highest point and at the Assembly level, citing the three Northern Regions (Northern, Upper West and Upper East) as areas that are seriously lagging behind the whole country.
Madam Francisca who sounded very passionate on issues affecting women thus, encouraged Northerners to support women by involving them in decision-making processes at the grassroots level. She called for more women to be elected during the up coming District Assembly and Unit Committee Elections.
Ghana is a signatory to many international conventions and protocols including the Beijing Platform for Action and Maputo Protocol which are all targeted at eliminating the discrimination and oppression women faced. These conventions and protocols further recognise the need to enhance women participation in decision-making and leadership.
In Beijing Platform for Action, leaders committed to a minimum of 30% women’s representation in national decision making structures. However, in Ghana, the numerical strength of women in key decision-making positions is just few. For instance, the Administrative Class in the Civil Service (the biggest employer in the country) has a total figure of 1,050 staff out of which only 136 are women. Within Political Parties, the situation is not different. Until January, 2010 no woman had ever made it to the position of Chairman or General Secretary. Women activists are therefore, advocating the need for change of strategy to focus more on policy development that will set parameters within which Ghana can achieve the international 30% threshold for women’s representation and participation in decision-making at all levels.
In a speech read for her, Women’s Rights Policy Advisor for ActionAid Ghana, Patience Adumua-Lartey, said currently there are only 19 female legislators in Ghana’s Parliament which is made of 230 parliamentarians. Adding that, at the District Assemblies elected women members made up only 10.1% as compared to 89.9% male participation.
According to her, the reasons why women’s participation have lagged woefully behind men are due to discriminatory socio-cultural practises which result in high illiteracy rates, lack of skills and low confidence levels among women together with lack of governmental and political will to promote women in governance.
Mrs. Adumua-Lartey explained that low understanding of local government concept and the role of Assembly women, inadequate knowledge of Assembly procedures, negotiation, advocacy and lobbying, communication skills and proposal writing thus formed the basis for the development of the training manual which will help potential Assembly women and women leaders in the country.
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