Takoradi Oct. 16, GNA - The Kadjebi District Assembly in the Volta Region was adjudged the overall best Gender Sensitive District Assembly at a National Association of Local Governments' (NALAG) maiden Gender Sensitive Award Ceremony held at Takoradi on Wednesday. The Assembly was presented with two computers and two fax machines as its prize.

Mr Kofi Adjei Ntim, District Chief Executive for Kadjebi received the award from Mrs Gladys Asmah, Minister of Women and Children Affairs, on behalf of the Assembly.

Speaking at the award ceremony, Mrs Asmah thanked the NALAG for its foresight in instituting the award.

She charged the Assemblies to institute and implement policies and programmes, which would mainstream gender and enhance gender collaboration in the spirit of partnership for national development.

Mrs Asmah said gender based discrimination and abuse of women were abhorrent to modern concepts of democracy and governance and therefore stressed the need to bring all partners, advocates, and stakeholders on board as the Ghanaian society struggles to become gender mainstream. She, however, cautioned that in the quest to achieve equality between the two genders, women advocates and activists should ensure that they did not end up giving signals to the male counterparts that they were also seeking their subjugation.

Gender mainstream, she said, connotes a spirit of equal partnership based on justice and fairness with equal opportunity for each gender to realise its potential.

Mrs Asmah noted that some men beat their wives but warned that, "In our campaign against those wife beaters we do not condemn every man and end up putting every man on the defensive and becoming resistant to a moral responsibility".

She said "it is necessary to bring up the image of the good and gender sensitive men and good practices as an example for others to emulate".

Mrs Asmah said if assemblies could commit themselves to empowering the women for roles in the work of the assemblies, there would be enough women to join up and therefore charged the assemblies to commit some resources to the training and building up the confidence of women since women are the largest group of traders, farmers and others who constitute the target of assemblies' policies.

Professor Atsu Ayee, Chairman of the NALAG Technical Committee of the maiden award ceremony, said the committee identified five main categories for the measurement of gender sensitivity of a district assembly, which were also sub-divided into outcomes and activities to ensure their measurability and preciseness.

This criteria, he said, was based on the effort of the district assembly to promote the political participation of women at the district level as well as activities such as the number of female government appointees, the number of women membership of sub-committees and the leadership positions inside and outside the assembly.

Other criteria were the district assembly budget allocations to particular or explicit gender sensitivity including outcomes such as proportion of district assembly common fund, poverty alleviation fund, HIPC fund, Member of Parliament's share of the common fund and internally generated funds allocated to gender related programmes.

Some of the criteria were based on building of capacity for women by district assemblies, involving a proportion of budget allocated to gender training and collaboration with non-governmental organisations and civil society organisations as well as the district assembly's effort at curbing cultural practices, which are harmful or negative to women.

Professor Ayee charged the assemblies to initiate more gender programmes to empower women in their respective districts. Certificates were also awarded to outstanding district assemblies on gender issues.