Ten years of Women’s Manifesto: Achievements and prospects
The Women’s Manifesto for Ghana is a document launched in 2004 to set out critical issues of concern to women and make demands for addressing them. The launch of the document led to the formation of the Women’s Manifesto Coalition, which is hosted by the ABANTU for Development’s Regional Office of Western Africa.
Advertisement
The document is a direct result of concern about insufficient attention given to critical issues affecting women. It is also the result of concern about the under-representation of women in politics, policy and decision making and in public life in general.
Various themes
The Manifesto, made up of 10 section, touches on various themes, including women’s economic empowerment; women and land; women, social policy and social development; women’s rights and the law; women with special needs; and sustainable development.
So far, the Manifesto, which provides a platform of a common set of demands for the achievements of gender equality, and equity and sustainable national development, has been translated into four main Ghanaian languages: Akan, Ewe, Ga and Dagbani.
The Director of ABANTU, Dr Rose Mensah-Kutin, outlined the achievements of the Women’s Manifesto since its inception in 2004 at a ceremony to launch the 10th anniversary of the document in Accra last Thursday.
She said since the launch of the document and the subsequent advocacy drive, a number of decisions and actions had been taken to address some of the demands of the Manifesto.
Passage of legislation
She said that had resulted in the passage of the Domestic Violence Act in 2007, the Anti-human Trafficking Law, the Disability Law and the creation of a special fund to meet one of the demands in the Manifesto to support women aspirants in district assembly elections, and the drafting of a Spousal Rights Property Bill.
She also said some women had been appointed to high profile positions that were never occupied by women, such as the Speaker of Parliament, the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, the Director of Immigration and an acting Inspector General of Police, while political parties had incorporated demands of the Manifesto into their party manifestos in Election 2008 and 2012 and increased the number of women in their National Executive Committees (NEC).
Other Trending Stories
Dr Mensah-Kutin added that there was the need for the coalition to work harder to promote gender equality and pledged the coalition’s commitment to ensuring better responses to demands and work to create enabling environment and frameworks that would allow for a truly transformational social change.
Credible agenda
Launching the anniversary, Dr Esther Ofei-Aboagye, the Director of Institute of Local Government Studies, who chaired the programme, said the Women’s Manifesto provided a robust and credible agenda for political parties, development partners and interested parties.
However, she said the fact that there were still issues to be dealt with should be a reminder of how difficult it was to effect social change.
“The need for Ghana to seriously examine national efforts at promoting women’s rights has never been more urgent. Ghana’ performance in relation to the third Millennium Development Goal, which aims at promoting gender equality, could have been stronger,” she said