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Nana Oye Lithur, Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, says Ghana is on track to achieving the Millennium Development Goal (MDG-1) target of reducing half the proportion of people living in extreme poverty. �The national proportion of people living below the upper poverty line is 24.2% in 2005 and 2013, this shows a decline in poverty of 7.7 percentage points,� Nana Oye said in Accra on Thursday. She was giving Ghana�s Report at the MOCK session of the 2014 Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). CEDAW is an internationally acknowledged �Bills of Rights� for women�s rights with its ideals of convention rooted in the goals of the United Nations, to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, dignity and equal rights between men and women. The Minister said Ghana continued to give highest priority to the attainment of the MDGs within the framework of the Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda, hence the implementation of the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) cash transfer programme being implemented in 2008. On maternal mortality, the sector Minister said trends in maternal mortality ratio in Ghana had shown a consistent decline since 1990. She said from a high rate of 740 deaths per 100,000 live births in 1990, maternal mortality had reduced to 350 deaths per 100,000 births, projecting a fall to 185 deaths per 100,000 live births. She added that access to health care and services, as well as geographical coverage, especially in the rural areas, had also increased through the expansion of the Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS). �There has been a continuous expansion of functional CHPS zones in all regions where the number of CHPS zones have increased from 868 in 2009 to a total number of 1,675 functional CHPS in 2011,� she said. Nana Oye, however, said government had enacted laws that would address gender-based violence, which include Human Trafficking Act, 2005 (Act 694), Domestic Violence Act, 2007 (Act 732), Matrimonial Causes Act, 1971 (Act 367), Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) Amendment Act 484. She said the ministry had also finalised the Human Trafficking Regulations Bill and is being forwarded to Parliament. Government and the people of Ghana recognised the participation and representation of women in public life as key to the development of Ghana, hence the adoption of an Affirmative Action Bill which is currently in its second draft stage hoping to have an advancement for women in public life. Nana Oye observed that in order to bridge the gender gap in access to education, 15,700 girls from junior high schools had benefitted from scholarships through the participatory approach. On justice, she said in addition to the Human Rights Court, the judiciary had established two gender-based and sexual offences courts to expedite the adjudication of cases of violence and abuse. She said the ministry was developing a Gender Policy that would ensure inclusive and sustainable development in the area of constitutional, legislative and institutional frameworks.