Enhance women’s access to economic opportunities
Some women’s rights advocacy groups have said it is time for the country to recognise and assist women’s efforts to be economically empowered, particularly those outside the regional capitals.
They said although a lot had been done over the years and had put women at some level economically, the country must on the occasion of the 59th anniversary endeavour or resolve to make real difference in the economic life of the ordinary woman in Ghana.
In an interview with the Graphic Business, the Coordinator of LAWA Ghana, Mrs Barbara Ayesu, said Ghana needed to work harder in this time and age to get more women to be economically empowered.
She said projects carried out by the group had revealed that because of lack money, most women (mostly widows and single parents) send their children nationwide to be engaged as domestic helps who often become victims of abuse and perpetually in servitude.
“When you go out there in the villages you realise that the women need support in terms of finances. We have trained them in business ventures and helped them gain skills to improve their businesses. Through our intervention, we have sent 400 children back to their homes and are integrated into the society. I think if they should get up to the level of Junior High School, they will be better placed in society,” she said.
Ghanaian women
They form over 52 per cent of the country’s population. The main economic activity for women in the rural areas in pre-colonial times was agricultural production. Those along the coast sold fish caught by men.
But many of the financial benefits from their commercial activities went into the upkeep of their household.
Hitherto, trading has been the main economic activity for those with little or no education in the urban centres.
In spite of this, Ghanaian women have been able to rise to top professional positions. Some are employed in the same line of work as men and paid equal wages and granted maternity leave with pay.
Despite the gains in some areas, gender inequalities continue to limit women’s ability to participate in and contribute to the growth of the economy.
The Christian Mothers Association of Ghana (CMA) is a non-governmental organisation in the Catholic Church that has a passion to make poor women productive.
Its Executive Secretary, Madam Elizabeth Addai-Boateng, said it was important for the government to focus on women in business, especially when they desire to train others.
She explained that in the past decade, Ghanaian women recognised the need for them to be empowered and that some women were doing better, perhaps than men, in terms of business.
“Most of the support to women in business is mostly technical and so they lack funding to expand their businesses. I will urge them to practise good bookkeeping and not keep money on them so they can get access to the right kind of financing,” she said.
She said skill training for women to help them establish their businesses and run them well was also key on the CMA’s agenda, following a need assessment from its diocesan presidents.
“We train them to empower them to be able to run their businesses well. We expect that through such trainings they would learn to know their customers, study their needs and how to deal with them and their debtors so they will not run into loses,” she said.
It adds that if women have access to productive assets, agricultural output in 34 developing countries will rise by an estimated average of up to four per cent.
That, it said, could reduce the number of undernourished people in those countries by as much as 17 per cent, translating to up to 150 million fewer hungry people.
The Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Nana Oye Lithur, at the UN General Assembly meeting in New York last year, September, called on United Nations to make a strong commitment for the economic empowerment of women.
She said ensuring access to finance and gender equality in employment could help enhance women’s access to economic opportunities.
UN Women
UN Women supports women economic empowerment in line with many international commitments that include the Beijing Platform for Action, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and a series of International Labour Organisation (ILO) conventions on gender equality.
According to UN Women, when more women work economies grow, so investing in women’s economic empowerment sets a direct path towards gender equality, poverty eradication and inclusive economic growth.