Project to whip interest of young women in politics launched

Abantu for Development, a non-governmental organisation, has launched a project to sponsor young women to monitor the upcoming general election to help whip their interest in political participation.

The project will be implemented in five districts in Adanso Asokwa in the Ashanti Region, Ga West and Tema West in the Greater Accra Region and Birim Central and West Akim in the Eastern Region.

It will bring together young girls between the ages of 18 and 35 years to monitor the elections.

The project is being sponsored by STAR-Ghana Foundation with funding from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office on the theme: “Strengthening Capacities on Gender Equality and Socially Inclusive Ghana's Elections 2024 and Beyond”. 

Project launch

The Executive Director, Gender Studies and Human Rights Documentation Centre, Dorcas Coker Appiah, who launched the project, said the passage of the Affirmative Action (Gender Equity) law on its own would not immediately change the status quo, hence the need to adopt practical steps to make the law effectively applicable.

She, therefore, called on stakeholders to adopt multiple strategies to make the law work.

She commended ABANTU for its work in helping more women take up leadership positions but also called for long-term strategies to train women in leadership skills.

Women participation

The Resource Mobilisation and Sustainability Manager, ABANTU, Hamida Harrison, noted that since the country’s return to multi-party democracy in 1992, the participation of vulnerable groups, especially women and persons with disabilities (PWDs), had remained extremely low.

She said it was against that background that ABANTU was implementing the project to increase the participation and representation of women within all decision-making spaces of Ghana’s governance system.

The Portfolio Manager, Rights to Services, STAR-Ghana, Raymond Danso, said the project would empower marginalised groups and build their capacities of stakeholders for an inclusive environment.

He said the project would help lay the groundwork for a more equitable society for all.

A Programme Officer at the Department of Women, under the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP), Sabia Kpekata, in a speech read on her behalf by the Director of the Department, Faustina Acheampong, said the department was ready to support the project to achieve its needed intentions.

Writer's email-rebecca.quaicoe-duho@graphic.com.gh