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Mrs Queenster Maame  Pokua Sawyerr, the Deputy  Central Regional Minister,  has said there is the need to strengthen  the capacities of Gender Desk Officers (GDO) in the various district assemblies.

She said this is needed to effectively mainstream gender issues in the development process of Metropolitan, Municipal and District   Assemblies (MMDAs).

She said the role of GDOs and queen-mothers was very important in addressing the existing gender inequalities, achieving policy effectiveness as well as ensuring that the outcome of government policies, programmes and projects at the MMDA level were gender sensitive.

Mrs Sawyerr said this at a day’s capacity building workshop for Gender Desk Officers of MMDAs and selected queen mothers in the Central Region at Cape Coast on Wednesday.

The workshop organized by the Department of Gender (DoG) and sponsored by GIZ Support for Decentralization Reform was on the theme, “Promoting  Women’s Participation in Local governance for sustainable development”.

Mrs Sawyerr said Ghana has over the years witnessed low participation of women at almost all levels of decision making and this has hampered the development of the country.

She said to achieve gender equality and effective participation of women at the local level it was imperative to have a clear understanding of how society perceived men and women in the process of decision making, and how it could lead to gender inequalities within the total development process in various institutions including MMDAs.

She said queen-mothers should mobilise women to effectively participate  in the MMDAs budget  hearing and decision making processes  in order to bring their concern and specific needs on board and called for their involvement in the activities of the various assemblies.

Mrs Sawyerr commended GIZ for supporting the training and asked that similar programmes be extended to the technical planning and budget staff of the MMDAs to increase their sensitivity towards gender issues.

Mrs Thywill Eyra Kpe, the Acting  Central Regional Director of DoG, said after the Beijing plus 20,  there was still the lack of financial resources, low levels of technical capacity and lack of political will to prioritize gender mainstreaming in all government policies. 

Mrs Kpe said it was imperative to review the existing  Gender and Children policy into the national Gender policy to help strengthen existing institutional mechanisms.

She said it is unfortunate that out of the 20 MMDAs in the Central Region only seven had Gender Desk Officers adding that this did not augur well for women participation in decision making at the local level.

She said in this regard her outfit has begun the compilation of information on GDOs in the Region in order to create a comprehensive database that would facilitate  information sharing as well as support the GDOs.

She said the empowering of women to participate in decision making does not  only address their needs but it also enhances productivity, improves  development outcomes for future generations and also makes institutions more representative and responsive to the needs of the various segments of society.

Mrs Magdalene Kannae, Head of Gender and Social Development Centre of the Institute of Local Government Studies, said the district assembly programme was instituted to ensure popular participation  at the local level and that it was important for women to actively participate in all the district assembly activities.

The participants were taken through topics like Gender/ Gender Mainstreaming, Gender Responsive Budgeting: role of GDOs; the importance of Women’s participation in district assembly’s budget hearing and decision making.