Government committed to gender equity (21/04/09)

THE Minister of Women and Children’s Affairs (MOWAC), Ms Akua Sena Dansua has reaffirmed government’s commitment to ensure gender equity in decision-making at all levels in order to attain equal participation of men and women in national development.
She said since women constituted more than half of the country’s population, they should be encouraged to be part of governance and decision-making, since their exclusion from such a process would hamper the attainment of national development goals.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of a two-day stakeholders workshop to discuss the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) gender policy in Accra on Wednesday, the minister said the government’s commitment to mainstream gender issues in development is reflected in the adoption of an Affirmative Action policy which had resulted in the appointment of women into key positions.
She said that was also reflected in the adoption of gender responsive budgeting adding that, that placed a special responsibility on public sector officials to integrate gender into their policies and programmes.
Ms Dansua commended GIMPA for its initiative and expressed optimism that the policy would spell out a well-defined strategy to promote the integration of gender-sensitive programmes in institutional set-ups to help address gender disparities.
She said GIMPA had been identified as one of the institutions responsible for building the capacity of senior public officials in gender mainstreaming skills under the joint Government of Ghana and African Development Bank, Gender Responsive Skills and Community Development project, being executed by MOWAC.
Ms Dansua urged all stakeholders participating in the forum to make valuable contributions to enrich the policy to build the capacity of public servants with the skills of addressing gender inequalities for the attainment of good governance and sustainable development.
The Rector of GIMPA, Prof. Agyeman Badu said the workshop which was organised by the institute in partnership with the Commonwealth Secretariat was to review GIMPA’s gender policy to train leaders to appreciate gender related issues.
He said the leadership of GIMPA was committed to support the Gender Centre to develop a Training curriculum for both gender specific training programmes and cross-cutting gender training into regular programmes.
The Advisor of Governance and Institutional Development Division (GIDD) of the Commonwealth Secretariat, Mrs Janet Kathyola, said there was the need to recognise the relationship between good governance and gender equality, and their mutual contribution to sustainable development, adding that gender equality was core to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
She added that ensuring gender equity in public service delivery and development outcomes required a public service that had the relevant gender competence to make gender the mainstream of all stages of policy and programme implementation processes such as budgeting and human resource management.