ABANTU News

Promoting Women In Decision-making: Are We Making A Difference?

A reflection on ABANTU's recent seminar with Assemblywomen from the ten regions of Ghana, held from December 4-5th, 2007.

ABANTU has directed its programmes based on the continued commitment to women’s activism in politics specifically and the promotion of gender equality principles in governance processes generally. Our efforts have focused on enhancing women’s capacities so that they can play an active and effective role in all governance processes in Ghana and by so doing they can influence policies towards gender responsiveness. 

Our basic reference has been the global mobilisation towards the promotion of gender equality as a basic right. The  1995  Beijing  Platform  for  Action emphasized that "women's equal participation  in  decision-making  is not only a demand for justice or democracy,  but  can  also  be seen as a necessary condition for women's interests  to be taken into account. Without the perspective of women at all levels of decision-making, the goals of equality, development and peace   cannot   be   achieved." 

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW),  in  its  Article  7,  called  upon  States  parties "to take all appropriate  measures  to  eliminate discrimination against women in the political and public life of the country".
Thus the major achievement of all the efforts is that concerns about the relevance of the linkages between the promotion of women’s active participation in politics, promotion of women’s rights and equitable and sustainable development is no more a debatable issue both globally and nationally.

However, despite this increased acceptance of gender equality, is democratic governance on the way to becoming a national entitlement? ABANTU for Development has organised a seminar to reflect on and critically evaluate the extent to which the strategies and interventions used are contributing to making a difference in the deliverables of governance from a gender perspective. It is also important to assess the extent to which initiatives being deployed to promote increased participation are making a difference in terms of transforming and increasing the accountability of institutions towards women’s concerns especially interests of underprivileged women in their livelihoods and their participation in decision-making.

The 2-day Reflection Seminar was on the theme: “Promoting Women In Decision-making: Are We Making A Difference?” . It brought together Assemblywomen from all the 10 regions of Ghana to reflect on and review ABANTU’s work with Assemblywomen in 2007. The participants have taken part in programmes that ABANTU for Developmentorganised with the support of Actionaid-Ghana in their effort to enhance women’s capacities for effective participation in decision-making processes.