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The Ministry of Women and Children's Affair (MOWAC) on Monday launched a $14.63 million gender sensitive project that will offer women skills to participate equitably in the country's development process. The four-year project jointly funded by the African Development Bank (ADB) and the government of Ghana will seek to improve national capacities for enhanced gender main-streaming. It will also seek to open avenues of financial and non-financial services for sustainable development that equally benefits women. The programme which is called "Gender Responsive Skills and Community Development Project" will benefit 50 districts across the country. Thirteen vocational institutions would undertake the training and the capacity building packages in the short and long term courses both locally and abroad. Ms. Akua Sena Dansua, Minister for MOWAC, said despite many national and international interventions to rescue women from poverty and want, women continue to face challenges in society. She said the challenges included socio-cultural practices, inadequate access to productive resources in the form of land, credit, technology and information. "High illiteracy reflected in the low representation of women in key decision making positions contributed to the poor status of women compared to men," she said. Ms. Dansua stressed that a number of activities such as the establishment of Project Management team, orientation for MOWAC staff, inauguration of the steering committee and procurement plans of the bank leading to the first disbursement of the money had already been done. She expressed appreciation to the ADB for the assistance. Dr. Kwabena Duffuor, Minister of Finance and Economic Planning whose speech was read on his behalf, said government was committed to empowering the women population adequately to contribute to national development agenda through unhindered access to opportunities and resources. "The gender responsive budgeting initiative would be scaled up especially in the acquisition of skills in gender concepts," he said. Dr. Duffuor added that the Finance Ministry would offer training to all the budget committees of MDAs in gender responsive budgeting to enable them undertake gender analysis of budgets to ensure their responsiveness. He called on the staff of MOWAC which is the executing ministry, the Project Management Unit and the other stakeholders to go the extra mile to ensure the success of the project. Mr. Alieu Jeng, Resident Representative of the African Development Bank Group, said the bank was supporting the government in undertaking the project. He said the bank had provided a total of $1.6 billion to implement 78 operations since it began operations in Ghana in 1973. He explained that there were 32 projects currently in the Ghana portfolio covering agriculture, roads, water and sanitation, health, education and decentralization sectors of the economy. He said the gender project with its crosscutting theme would fully complement project in other sectors and was hopeful that MOWAC and the other supporting agencies would ensure that the project succeeded. Dr. Christine Amoako Nuamah, Policy Advisor at the Presidency, who chaired the event, said there were many statements in many local languages that denigrated women and that such utterances should not be used to undermine the project.