Gov't to launch national gender policy today

Government is to launch a National Gender Policy on Monday, aimed at mainstreaming gender, women‘s empowerment and social protection concerns into national development processes for equitable livelihood for women and men, boys and girls.

The overarching goal of the policy is to mainstream gender equality concerns into the national development processes by improving the social, legal, civic, political, economic and socio-cultural conditions of the people of Ghana, particularly women, children, the vulnerable and people with special needs; persons with disability and the marginalized.

The policy dwells on provisions in International Instruments ratified by Ghana, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Ghana‘s National Development Frameworks including the Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda I (2010 – 2013) and II (2014 – 2017).

Nana Oye Lithur, Minister of Gender Children and Social Protection explained that the current Policy was a product of several assessments and consultations including the 2010 UNFPA sponsored institutional assessment and the review of Ghana‘s performance in the sector of Gender equality and women‘s empowerment.

She said stakeholders in the sector will be expected to take strategic policy actions as directed by the policy to address bottlenecks and barriers and critical issues existing alongside the successes.

These issues of concern include: Inequality in access to social protection by the marginalized, vulnerable and the poor; Inequalities in the burden of extreme poverty, education, skilled training gaps and excess maternal mortality; and unequal access to social, economic power and justice, including lack of respect for and inadequate protection and promotion of human rights of women.

Others are: Inequalities between women and men in sharing of power and decision making at all levels and in dealing with all kinds of conflicts and insecurities and threats on women.

Nana Oye Lithur said the Policy provides broad objectives and policy commitments, as well as a detailed institutional framework for the operationalization of government‘s commitments to achieve gender equality and women‘s empowerment in its national vision of investing in people for better social and economic growth.

The Gender Minister said the policy commitment hinges on: Women Empowerment and Livelihoods; Women Rights and Access to Justice; Women Leadership and Accountable Governance; Economic Opportunities for women; and Gender Roles and Relations.

She said conceptual framework upon which the overall goal of the policy has been developed consists of sectoral and crosscutting gender equality issues for policy response.

Resource allocation; programme development and accountability actions for achieving gender equality targets; and social safeguards for women‘s empowerment.

The Gender Minister said the policy articulates issues from gender perspectives, ensuring that women and men, girls and boys as well as the vulnerable, the marginalized and persons living with disability participate and have a voice and decision-making power in governance processes.

The Ministry of Gender acknowledges the contributions of former President John Agyekum Kufour for establishing a women‘s Ministry and giving it a cabinet status; the late President John Evans Atta Mills for his special impetus and support for women empowerment and gender equality matters.

The Ministry also commended President John Dramani Mahama for renaming and expanding the mandate of the Ministry to Women, Children and Social Protection.

The Ministry also acknowledges the contribution and efforts of former Ministers including Mrs Gladys Asmah, Mrs Alima Mahama, Mrs Akua Sena Dansua, Mrs Juliana Azumah Mensah for providing quality leadership in championing the cause of women in Ghana and most importantly the development of processes of this Policy. “We also highly appreciate Development Partners such As UNFPA, UN Women, WFP for providing technical and financial support towards the development processes of the Policy. “We are also grateful to individual gender activists, experts and interest groups who made contributions directly and through validation meetings in finalizing the policy. Efforts of the media are also much appreciated.

“We further acknowledge the technical team of the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection who provided technical expertise in coordinating the development of the Policy,” Nana Oye Lithur stated.

Source: GNA