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The Women in Parliaments Global Forum (WIP) and the Mexican Senate co-hosted a unique meeting of female Parliamentarians that marks the 40th anniversary of the First World Conference on Women in 1975 from the 7th to 9th of October 2015. The WIP Mexico Summit also addressed crucial issues such as the Post-2015 development Agenda and the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, and seek strategies to improve women’s representation in the Media. As in previous meetings, WIP is pleased to provide the platform for discussion and exchange of ideas between female Parliamentarians and leaders from around the globe, with the collaboration of international institutions such as UN Women and the World Bank. The member of Parliament for Gomoa Central, Hon. Rachel Nana Adwoa Appoh attended and delivered a statement. Below is her full speech. CHAIRPERSON, LEADERS OF THE HOUSE, FELLOW PARLIAMENTARIANS PRESENTS, DISTINGUISHED GUESTS PRESENT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, ALL PROTOCOL DUELY OBSERVED. It is always a pleasure to join other fellow women to engage in a global discourse to improve the lives of women irrespective of race, color, age, gender and sexuality. Greetings from Ghana to everyone present here as this forum gives us the platform to advocate and share our ideas towards gender equality. Let me acknowledge and appreciate the Republic Senate of Mexico for putting together this program which has created the platform to sustain the discussions on issues confronting women in leadership and the progress already made. It also helps us to identify our challenges through experience sharing and building on networking to partner in the global effort to prevent and protect women from marginalization. Globally, the challenges confronting women are similar as well as its solutions. For me, equity means respecting and valuing differences and allowing everyone particularly women to have the same opportunity to guarantee their rights. This helps us to attain the overall results we want to achieve from our efforts as we develop and set targets to help measure our progress - that is equality. However, despite the efforts being made by most governments in countries such as Latin America, Asia, the Caribbean and African countries including Ghana to tackle gender related issues, have not yielded the desired results fully. Women are faced with inhumane and degrading challenges such as human trafficking, domestic violence, child labor in its worst forms, illiteracy in women, environmental degradation, teenage pregnancy, feminization of poverty. Others include patriarchy, harmful cultural practices, gender stereotyping, weak institutions to bring on board gender mainstreaming activities; stigmatization and discrimination are all barriers confronting women. Of course health related issues such as maternal mortality, under five child mortality, diseases including HIV/AIDS as well as malaria claims lots of lives which women suffer the consequences the most. Ladies and gentlemen, for me being here gives me a voice to speak for those who do not have one and as a parliamentarian, I am particularly interested in issues relating to patriarchy, political instability including conflicts, wars, and irregular migration which have forced many women and children into deplorable conditions. Peace has eluded many women even in the absence of conflict and war as most of their freedoms are curtailed through harmful traditional practices as well as economic insecurity. Food insecurity due to climate change, political instability and economic impoverishment has made women very vulnerable to other inhumane and harsh living conditions. For instance, the high levels of refugees and irregular migration have led to trafficking of girls and children for purposes of exploitation. Human Trafficking and irregular migration are currently becoming very alarming both internally and internationally which call for our conceited efforts to tackle them. In our situation in Ghana, many concerns have been raised concerning the way and manner women and children migrate to Kuwait, Qatar aside smuggling in persons to Europe. People walk through the Sahara desert en route to Libya, Tunisia and others using them as transit routes, with the false hopes of getting to Europe and in search of greener pastures. Traffickers preys primarily on the most vulnerable – women, children, the poorest, the least educated and the innocent in our country. Ladies and gentlemen, despite the above challenges, there have been enormous efforts to tackle the issues that further widen the gender gap. Solving and dealing with the challenges that confront women whether in public or private life is certainly through gender mainstreaming. Gender mainstreaming perspective for any planned programs, projects including legislations, policies or programs in all areas helps assess the implications for men and women. Let me congratulate the Mexican government and its citizens for their new constitutional reform since legislation is one strategy for making women as well as men experiences integral for the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programs in all political, economic, social and cultural spheres so that women, children and men can benefit equally and stop inequality. In Ghana, policies and actions have been made by the Government to address problems in the interest of the population. There is good governance, political stability and economic growth to serve as the catalyst for development in all spheres. There are legislations to protect women such as the Human Trafficking Act, Act 694, the Domestic Violence Act, Act 732, the 1992 Constitution as well as dedicated teams to implement all the sectors of the CEDAW convention to protect and promote the rights of women. There are specialized institutions also put in place to promote the rights of women and children including the Ministry for Gender, Children and Social Protection. A Domestic Violence and Victim Support Unit (DOVVSU) have been open in all Police administration to ensure laws are enforced. Also the government has a Child labor Unit to coordinate the elimination of all forms of child labor and a Human Trafficking Secretariat to combat trafficking in persons. Through the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Ghana as a country have launched and disseminated a new National Gender Policy which seek to mainstream all gender related issues especially focusing on the distribution of power between men and women. The Policy seek to draw attention in taking action to rectify the unequal access to resources such as land, capital and gender based distribution of power and resources to change attitudes and influence society. Again, Ghana has also launched this year a National Child Policy to ensure that, apart from the legal instruments and laws, cultural definitions of a child and social responsibility for the upbringing and development of children are recognized. This also throw lights on the importance of the family in the traditional settings on the development of children which in the long run will help prevent child abuse, child neglect, negative child vices and parental irresponsibility’s. Issues relating to juvenile justice have also gone through reforms to holistically prevent, protect and develop children that come in conflict with the law. There has also been significant progress towards gender equality such as poverty reduction through social intervention programs among the proportion of population living in extreme poverty. The poverty gap ratio in Ghana has continued to decline from 35% in 2006 to approximately 25% as at 2014. Ghana has successfully reduced by half, underweight children, prevented under five mortality in children through rigorous community immunization exercise, distribution of mosquito’s nets and awareness creation on the importance of anti and post natal care. This was possible through the Ghana Governments continues accountability to the people of Ghana and the whole West Africa especially in areas of peace and security. To give highest priority to the attainment of the better Ghana agenda within the framework of the Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda (GSGDA), there have been massive improvement in access to clean and safe water in major cities and the rural sector. As part of its response, Ghana introduce a National Social Protection Strategy (NSPS) Projects which includes the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) cash transfer Programme which was introduced in 2008 to provide a safety net for the poorest and most marginalized groups in the Ghanaian Society. Over 74,000 households are currently on LEAP with 56.37% of the beneficiaries being women. LEAP provides free enrollment on the National Health Insurance Scheme which is also a health intervention to improve access to medical facilities. Research shows that this Programme has reduced food insecurity for LEAP families by 25% for all families and 32% for families headed by females with major impact on nutritional levels. The government this year has increase it to cover 94, 000 households as a sure way intervention to reduce the feminization of poverty. Other key interventions include the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) which aims at bridging the gap between the Northern and southern Ghana. The Microfinance and small loans center (MASLOC) offers small scale credit and loans to small and medium enterprises. About 99% of the funds have been allocated to women. The local enterprise and skills development Programme (LESDEP) provides training, start-up equipment and financial support for unemployed youth and has benefitted many young women. The school Feeding and Capitation Grants, free school uniforms, books and computers to increase enrolment and retention rate among school going boys and girls at the basic level. Our Country has made impressive progress over the last decades in promoting gender equality in access to primary education. The percentage of girls’ enrollment in primary school has increased between academic years 2002 to 2013 from 47.6 percent to 48.8 percent. The Gross Enrollment rate was measured at 93.7 percent. Poverty has however been identified as the most significant factor in gender disparities in the completion of education. Gender parity in schools is closest to being achieved at the primary level where net enrollment in 2011 was 84.04 for boys and 83.77 for girls. Literacy rate for young women has increased considerably from 66 percent from 2000 to 79.9 percent in 2010. The overall literacy rate for female is 61.2 percent due to regional disparities. Fellow women Parliamentarians, public life and women in leadership in regard to Political life in Ghana have improved significantly. Currently, the head of our Electoral Commission is a woman as well as the Chief Justice. Women also occupy many other important positions to strengthen women in decision making to move the country forward. Such positions include Foreign Affairs Minister, the Minister for Justice, Education, Health, Transport, Tourism and Gender. In addition, the Chief Justice, Chairperson for the Council of State, National Commissioner for Civic Education, as well as the Director Generals of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice, Ghana Investment Promotion Centre, Ghana Aids Commission, Controller and Accountant General, Statistical Service and the Ghana Prison Service are all females. Female representation at the District level as Municipal, Metropolitan and District Chief Executives (MMCEs) has progressively increased, and our Ministry is engaging with the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development (MLGRD) to increase women’s participation at the grass root level through affirmative action. Before I end my remarks, let me continue this discourse by quoting Denise Watiley since am going to talk a little about the SDGs as the post 2015 agenda in the world who said " the reason most people never reach their goals is that they do not define them, or ever seriously consider them as believable or achievable" I am quoting him because I wish all women will believe we can make a change even though issues of women have always been treated as numbers and just ‘added on’. Although we have come a long way to understand what gender mainstreaming and gender budgeting means to executing projects and programs, we must first understand where we will be if all the over 17 goals of the SDGs are achieved. There is no doubt that the MDGs have contributed to resource mobilization and the desired push for gender equality and women’s empowerment. However, to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, let me state that it will take; 1. capacity development at global, regional , national and district levels to ensure sustainable women empowerment and growth 2. knowledge sharing and networking among key stakeholders to effectively provide the needed resources to efficiently raise the standards of women 3. Encourage women to participant in public life. This will help mobilize more women in decision making processes as well as encourage them to be agent of peace and conflict building 4. Access the impact of existing social interventions programs and ensure alternatives are provided to create, replicate and or expand effective models to address gender related challenges 5. Enhance resource mobilization to support on- going programs be innovative in areas of advocacy, sensitization, communication to change minds and attitudes to sustain democracy and human rights. 6. Increase education and women empowerment programs as well as improving infrastructure to strengthen the course of women 7. Women migration should raise their standard of living including transnational families through remittances as well as employable opportunities in dignified jobs. 8. Finally, we need to monitor and evaluate all the efforts made by various organizations, institutions, development partners and individuals for new course of action. The Government and people of Ghana are committed to ensuring gender equality and globally each effort made by all including the opportunity presented today by the Mexican government shows how our progress towards equality. Thank you all for your attention.