Thursday, 19 June 2014

Workshop to deepen decentralisation held



19-06-14               
Some women in leadership have proposed that women should be given enough resources and orientation to boost their confidence in district local elections. According to them, the increasing poor performance of women during assembly elections are primary due to the absence of financial and other resources to fund campaigns and appealed to all  concerned individuals and agencies to give women the necessary support and training to be able to  compete strongly with their male folks. Women, they further proposed should be given the needed educational support for them to deliver up to expectation. These concerns were raised at a day’s workshop organized by the Community Development and Advocacy Centre, CODAC, with support from Ibis Ghana at Bongo in the Upper East Region. The meeting was to dialogue with the various political parties to solicit support for the profiled women for the upcoming Unit Committee and District Assembly Elections. It brought together stakeholders including past and present assembly women, opinion leaders, political party representatives as well as heads of decentralized departments. In a presentation, the Programmes Manager, Seidu Musah Akagri, told Radio Ghana that his office through effective interaction with communities and research conducted on women leadership in the 2010 district assembly elections discovered low participation and representation of women in local governance. CODAC since the discovery has been collaborating with Ibis Ghana to promote women participation and representation in governance. This, he explained was to create awareness and deepen decentralization and democracy at the local level. In this respect, CODAC is fishing out for qualified women for profiling so that their capacities could be built to enable them compete effectively in the upcoming district level elections. He stressed on the urgent need for women to demonstrate their commitment by nurturing and encouraging other women to aspire for leadership positions. To him, women’s participation in political life is pivotal to social development considering the significant and invaluable role they play to the development processes. He further expressed the belief that women are the core actors of the society and needed the required push and recognition only if they are to get anywhere with the country’s development agenda. The Regional Director of the National Youth Authority, James Abang-Gos, said though provisions are made in the various political party manifestoes to  increase women representation in government, nothing concrete had been achieved in that regard. He said at the district level out of 54 elected and appointed assembly members, only 9 are females with the rest being males. Mr Abang-Gos, entreated political parties and stakeholders to bury their partisanship in the upcoming district level elections and support women to win the elections to correct the imbalances. Women were also asked to unite and avoid multiple female candidates in one electoral area.
GBC                                           END                                                                                   IA/

No comments:

Post a Comment