Stakeholders meet to harmonise activities Women's affairs

Bolgatanga (U/E), Nov. 3, GNA - The Regional Inter Sectoral Gender Network (RISEGNET) on Wednesday met in Bolgatanga to harmonise activities on how to get more women elected in the municipal and district level elections.

Mr James Daud Abang-gos, Chairman of RESEGNET said the meeting was to help members to share ideas on possible areas to work as a team in the implementation of specific activities which would have significant bearing on the overall objectives of the partnership.

He said the objectives of RISEGNET is to facilitate the inclusion of women in governance at all levels of decision making, create platforms for women to express their views and advocate, sensitize and build capacity of women to take leadership roles.

He explained that the network did not only want to work to increase the current number of 55 women in the assembly but to improve on their performance, saying it was in the interest of all to encourage and assist women to participate in governance.

Mr Gregory Dery, Programme Officer, Gender, Women Rights and HIV/AIDS, of Action Aid Ghana (AAG) said an amount of 15,000 Ghana cedis had been spent to build the capacity of 200 women leaders in the region whilst another 13,838 Ghana cedis was to be spent in the same area for women aspirants in the election exercise.

Mr Dery said strategies that were mapped out for AAG's and RISEGNET's intervention was to lobby political leaders to allot 50 per cent of government appointees to women, provide training for women who were aspiring and had filed their nominations.

His worry was that AAG and RISEGNET had not been able to make judicious use of the scarce resources they had because anytime assemblies were dissolved to prepare for another District Level Election they had to raise funds to make a fresh start of trainings for new set of aspirants.

Madam Margaret Issaka, Coordinator for Centre for Sustainable Development Initiatives (CENSUDI) said 63 women had been presented by 19 communities to participate in this year's district level elections. She said these communities were a coalition of Community Driven Gender Advocacy Movement (CODRIGAM) that led gender advocacy efforts at all levels.

She said it was important to correct the gender imbalance that existed in society adding that CODRIGAM was made possible when CENSUDI facilitated programmes in the communities for them to take up development initiatives on their own.