Gender equality key to sustainable development – Nana Addo

Scaling up the efforts at empowering and expanding opportunities for women are key to achieving sustainable development and prosperity for Ghana and the African Continent, President Nana Akufo-Addo has said.

He said women were central actors in national growth, thus meeting the challenges of empowering them and ensuring gender equality was “one of the best ways of mitigating poverty and guaranteeing the progress and prosperity of our country and continent.”

President Akufo-Addo made this known at the first Gender and Development Initiative for Africa (GADIA) Advocates Charge Awards held at the Flagstaff House in Accra.

The GADIA Advocates Charge (GACH) Awards is a flagship initiative established by the President who is an African Union Gender Champion to support sustainable gender equality and increase the participation and progress of women within the private sector.

The awards will be conferred on a specific number of prominent businessmen across the Continent who would be charged by the President to take concrete and measurable steps within their respective companies to enhance gender equality over a particular period of time.

Noting that women were mainstreamed in every economic sector of the country, President Akufo-Addo said the promotion of gender equality at the workplace, particularly in the private sector, was a prerequisite for socio-economic development.

He said Ghana, and for that matter, Africa, could not eradicate poverty without paying attention to and addressing the needs of women, who statistics indicated overwhelmed the population.

That was why, the President said, his administration had instituted policies aimed at rapidly increasing Ghana’s future prosperity and creating a valued-added economy expected to create the necessary number of high-paying jobs that would improve the living standards of the people, especially women.

Government, he said, would ensure that it stimulated Ghana’s private sector growth and made gender equality part and parcel of business, as women were a central part in every rapid development narrative.

The President charged the awardees to ensure that they promote gender equality in their respective corporate environments as the country and the Continent worked towards inclusive growth to unleash the potential of its peoples.

He further urged the top echelon of corporate entities to increase their support for greater freedoms for women and their participation in decision-making as they (women) could significantly lower Africa’s myriad of growth challenges.