In line with the global movement to promote good governance and leadership that allows both men and women to participate equally in decision making to accelerate development, we journalists drawn from five regions in Ghana- Greater Accra, Western, Central, Eastern and Volta, meeting at a two day workshop on “Promoting greater visibility for women in leadership”, jointly organized by the Women Manifesto Coalition, Women Media and Change and ABANTU for Development; having noted the contents of the Policy Statement on Affirmative Action of 1998, make the following recommendations:
That government should as a matter of urgency initiate the process towards
A. Legalizing the 1998 Policy Statement on Affirmative Action.
B. Put in place structures for the implementation of the said policy statement. This includes the setting up of the Committee on affirmative Action as stipulated in the document in reference
C. Institute measures to ensure the implementation of programmes on affirmative action.
D. Speed up the process of ensuring 40% representation of women in all advisory bodies as stipulated in the 1998 Affirmative Action Document
E. Initiate action for 40% representation of women in parliament as stated in the document. In this respect current efforts being made to amend the electoral laws to fund political parties, should make mandatory for political parties to ensure that 40% of their parliamentary candidates are women.
F. To ensure adequate representation of women at district and sub district levels of administration the target of at least 40% representation of women must be met.
G. Ensure that the decentralization process remains non-partisan and devoid of monetary influence
H. To fulfill the promise to set up a Special Fund for Girls education as stated in the said document for the education and training of women and girls at all levels as well as do a national evaluation of the “Girls Education Programme” of the Ministry of Education.
I. We further urge the Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs to collaborate with the Ghana Statistical Service to generate gender disaggregated data to inform the process of increasing women’s participation in governance and leadership in the country
J. To step public education on affirmative action
We also appeal to political parties to introduce measures to encourage women participation in politics. In this regard we recommend the following;
A. To introduce affirmative action to ensure that 40% of office holders at all levels are women in order to fulfill the objectives of the 1998 Policy Statement on Affirmative Action
B. Put up women parliamentary candidates in constituencies considered to be party strongholds or safe seats.
C. Step up political education to encourage more women to stand for election and also for the electorate to vote for them
D. Make election processes very transparent and devoid of rancor and acrimony that tend to discourage women’s participation in politics
Signed by all participants on this 5th day of June in the year of our Lord 2009
