Sunyani, May 14, GNA - Mr John Abaa, Brong Ahafo Regional Women's Rights Programme Officer of Action Aid Ghana has urged women to get involve in decision making at the local level He gave the advised at a workshop in Sunyani on Wednesday to deliberate on what could be done to support women aspirants in the forth coming district assemblies and Unit Committees elections. The meeting attended by 20 participants, focused on major obstacles that prevent women from participating in District and Unit Committee elections and also suggest ways to overcome them. He mentioned that in 2002 100 women in the region stood for the elections and 37 won whilst in 2006, 58 out of 230 women got elected. Mr Abaa said the figures clearly indicated that only few women were in the District Assembly.

He stated that decisions taken at the Assembly mostly affected women and children, hence the need to get more women to be part of the decision making in the district. Mr Abaa asked participants to try to promote women at the local level by encouraging them to organized sensitization programme. He noted that areas where two women contested the election they both were defeated because their votes got divided. Mr Abaa, therefore, suggested that one woman should contest at an electoral area to compete with their male counterparts. The participants said much needed to be done to influence the appointment of women into the Assembly and to improve their performance in the coming elections. Participants also called on the public to support women adequately with available resource to be able to come out in their numbers to contest and win the election. 14 May 10