Seven organisations to support women in district assembly elections
Seven organisations have recommitted to continue implementing various strategies and interventions that could lead to an improvement in the performance of women in the district assembly elections.
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These include strengthening the capacity of female candidates to run successful campaigns, sensitising voters in selected communities to the need to avoid gender stereotyping and engaging with key stakeholders at the local and national levels to support the election and appointment of more women into the district assemblies.
The organisations are Northern Sector Action and Awareness Centre (NORSAAC), Abantu for Development, Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), Regional Inter-Sectoral Gender Network (RISEGNET), Community Development and Advocacy Centre (CODAC), Foundation for Security and Development in Africa (FOSDA) and the Centre for Active Learning and Integrated Development (CALID).
With the support of the Danish Independent Development Organisation, Ibis, the seven organisations have been working together in a strategic partnership to support women’s participation in the governance process both at the local and national levels.
Communiqué
In a communiqué signed by the seven organisations at the end of a forum of partner organisations, the organisations claimed that the representation of women in decision making was still low at the national and local governance levels.
The partners forum is organised each year to enable Ibis and its partners from Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and collaborators to take stock of ongoing development and advocacy interventions, review the strategies and approaches, share lessons learned and consolidate best practices.
“Women’s representation in Ghana’s Parliament stands at only 10.9 per cent, a figure far below the United Nations (UN) recommended 30 per cent minimum threshold. There are only six women in a cabinet of 20, three women on a 23-member Council of State, one out of 10 regional ministers, eight women out of 39 ministers of state and seven out of 34 deputy ministers,” the statement read.
“At the local governance level, from the 2010 elections data, out of 6,059 members of district assemblies, only 378 are women, representing 6.2 per cent of the total,” it further noted.
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Nominations for appointment
The organisations also intend to engage the government to reinforce its earlier directive that women should constitute 40 per cent of nominations for appointment into the district assemblies.
More importantly, the CSOs want the government to go beyond this to ensure that 40 per cent of the appointees into each assembly are women since that will be more meaningful and significant.
The Country Director for Ibis Ghana, Mr Hamza Tijani said it was important for CSOs to use more innovative approaches to achieve better results and also share useful reflections that would improve future interventions.