Female parliamentary aspirants attend capacity building workshop
Women continue to be underrepresented at the various levels of the country’s decision-making structure, both at the local and at the national levels. They make up less than 11 per cent of the 275-member Parliament and occupy about 23 per cent of ministerial positions.
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Gender advocates, aware of the numerous benefits to be derived from the participation of women in the country’s agenda-setting process, both at the national and local levels, continue to worry about the issue.
As the country approaches the 2016 general election, some gender groups and advocates have started campaigning on the need for more women to be elected into Parliament. To them, building the capacities of women contesting in the forthcoming elections remains the best alternative to increasing women’s presence in political decision-making positions, so as to help strengthen the country’s democratic dispensation.
Female aspirants
To that end a capacity building workshop was organised by ABANTU for Development, in collaboration with ActionAid Ghana, in Accra, for 30 female parliamentary aspirants from the Greater Accra, Central, Brong Ahafo and Western regions.
The objective of the workshop was to, among other things, help create the opportunity for the women aspirants to share their experiences and skills for effective campaigning.
A Commissioner of the Electoral Commission of Ghana, Ms Paulina Adobea Dadzawa, who took the female aspirants through “Ghana’s electoral system and women’s participation in elections”, called on the women to ensure that they kept themselves abreast of the country’s electoral rules.
She took them through how the electoral system worked, why the presidential election was declared through the ‘first past the post’ system while the parliamentary was through the simple majority.
Ms Dadzawa said the concerns of women on the need to increase their participation could only be addressed at the political party level, as the EC did not have any hand in such issues.
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She, therefore, called on the aspirants to work at ensuring that their political parties created the favourable and enabling environment where more women would be at the helm of affairs.
Women’s voices
In a keynote address, Dr Mrs Comfort Asare, Director, Department of Gender at the Gender Ministry, said the voice of women was faint because of their low representation at the decision-making level.
She said it was interesting to note that the efforts of the United Nations to promote gender equality was still hindered by both lack of political will and commitment of people across sectors.
She urged the female parliamentary aspirants to exhibit extraordinary qualities to convince the electorate that they were the ones they needed.
She, therefore, called on the aspirants to position themselves strategically to win by “having eyes of reality, eyes of discernment and eyes of vision to compose your campaign message”.
“Please do not engage in any form of ‘rough’ campaign because unpalatable words against your dignity by your male opponents can be very damaging to your personality and kill your enthusiasm.”
Participation
The Convener for Women’s Manifesto, Ms Hamida Harrison, in a presentation on the “basis for women’s participation in governance”, said gender equality made a lot of economic sense as studies had shown that many parts of the developing world, including Ghana, could not succeed in overcoming poverty, enhancing the quality of its human capital and doubling its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) without fully integrating issues of gender equality.
She said if women were not empowered to access opportunities and participate equally in decisions that were being taken, without recourse to aptitude and needs, global and national economies would continue to suffer, stressing that there were also negative consequences if gender inequality was not made central to the new initiative of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Writer's email: rebecca.quaicoe-duho@graphic.com.gh