Support women to vie for political positions - WABA

THE President of the Women’s Assistance and Business Association (WABA), a non governmental organisation, Mrs Gloria Ofori-Boadu has stressed the need for governmental and non-governmental organisations to strongly support, and advocate for measures to improve women’s participation in governance.
 She said since women constituted more than 50 per cent of Ghana’s population, it was necessary to encourage more women to vie for political positions in the country, especially at the district assembly level, where the assemblies have the mandate to initiate projects and programmes for the  development of the district.
Mrs Ofori-Boadu said the 1992 Constitution provided for the major functions of the assembly and that included the formulation and execution of plans, programmes and strategies for the effective mobilisation of the resources necessary for the overall development of the district, such as levying and collection of taxes, rates, duties and fees.
Addressing a workshop organised by the Institute of Democracy and Human rights Education of WABA, she said it was a fact that the major reliable and highest source of revenue for internally generated funds of the assemblies were the markets which was an area dominated by women.
She said, for this reason, women played a critical role in executing the functions of the district assemblies, which was to mobilise resources for the overall development of the districts, since the market was dominated by women, who had been socialised to work there as part of their daily chores.
Mrs Ofori-Boadu said it then made sense that Ghana needed to take extra and specific steps to involve women in the district assemblies, since they constituted over 80 per cent of people operating in the informal sector of the economy, which was a major source of income generation in the country.
She said “we are therefore calling for new constitutional provisions that will provide specifically for the nomination, election and appointment of 50 per cent men and 50 per cent women to all nominated, appointed and elected positions to the metropolitan, municipal, district assemblies and their sub-structure, that is the Unit Committees.”
The workshop was aimed at building the capacity of aspiring members of district assemblies through mentoring by other women who had been to the assemblies. It further sought to strongly advocate for specific constitutional provisions to increase women’s participation in political activities in the country.