ActionAid Ghana (AAG) has reiterated the need to address historical and systematic barriers that have disproportionately hindered women’s access to resources and opportunities to enable them to participate actively in the national economy.
“Despite the progress made so far, women face significant obstacles to achieving equal participation in the economy and we call on all to ensure equal opportunity for women and girls to build their capabilities and strengthen their capacity to learn, earn, and lead,” Madam Abiba Nibaradun, the Upper West Regional Manager of AAG, said on Friday.
She said this at Lawra during the Upper West Regional celebration of the International Women’s Day (IWD), with this year’s theme being: “Count Her In: Invest in Women. Accelerate Progress.”
Representatives of PronetNorth, the Upper West Regional Gender Support Network, and traditional leaders among others, attended the event organised by ActionAid Ghana, in collaboration with MEDA and the Upper West Regional Department of Gender.
The event, which also brought together women from selected districts and municipalities in the region, also saw a cooking competition among men who prepared indigenous dishes.
There was also a role play by members of the Young Urban Women’s Movement depicting how young women were sexually harassed in their quest to seek decent jobs in both the formal and informal sectors.
Madam Nibaradun called on stakeholders to support and promote women’s inclusion in leadership and key decisions that affected their lives and for Parliament to speed up the process towards the passage of the Affirmative Action Bill into law.
She said the theme for the celebration “highlights the critical importance of women’s economic empowerment as central to realising women’s rights and gender equality.”
It also aligned with AAG’s Country Strategic Paper (CSP) VII, which, among other things, sought to promote women’s rights and decent work to create a just world with an equitable distribution of resources.
Madam Charity Batuure, the Upper West Regional Director, Department of Gender, observed that the IWD offered the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection the opportunity to assess what had been done regarding issues of women, the challenges and the specific steps that could be taken to achieve the desired goal.
She said the desired goal was women’s total inclusion in the national economy and giving men and women equal opportunities to participate in decision-making, especially on issues that affected women.
“We cannot expect progress if we can’t have the majority that matters in the development process, which is the women,” Madam Batuure, also the convener of the Gender Support Network, indicated.
She added that there should be fair representation of women at all levels and called on stakeholders and development partners to be intentional about issues of women, by involving them in the planning, implementation and conclusion stages to achieve the expected outcome.
Pognaa Agnes Tangzie, the Queen Mother of Gbengbe in the Lawra Traditional Area, encouraged women to be confident and venture into some of the male dominated roles.
She stressed the need for increased advocacy and education to empower more women to have confidence and to participate actively in national discourse.
GNA