Ghana

Background

The Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs, (MOWAC) has been spear-heading a vigorous national drive to ensure that Gender Mainstreaming, gender-responsive budgeting, and women empowerment  concerns become integral parts of Ghana’s medium to long term development agenda.

As the National Gender Machinery, MOWAC formulates and coordinates gender policies and programmes within the domain of Ghana’s National Development Policy Framework (GPRS II) and in line with the MDGs to achieve specific time–bound outputs and outcomes. MOWAC’s gender implementation strategy is predicated on effective collaboration and coordination of efforts between key sector ministries, the UN System, other Development Partners, NGOs, and Civil Society Organisations

Since 2006, MOWAC has been pursuing strategic interventions to address feminised poverty, human rights violations including human trafficking, domestic violence and other forms of violence against women, sexual and reproductive health issues and related development .  Attention has also been placed on promoting women’s participation in decision making at all levels, critical issues underpinning the health status of Ghanaian women and children, and engaging in policy dialogue to ensure that gender effectively becomes one of the core priority areas of the government’s development agenda.

In 2007, the Ministry collaborated with key sector MDAs and Development Partners to move national gender equality, Rights promotion/protection and women’s empowerment a step further, to be in line with the National development aspirations of Ghana.   Specifically, through a joint UNDP/UNFPA Annual Work Plan, support went towards (i) building capacity of MOWAC personnel at the national and regional/district levels to provide policy advice on gender issues (ii) developing competencies to mainstream gender, including gender budgeting, monitoring and evaluation, data collection and analysis; and (iii) strengthening capacity to increase women’s participation in public decision-making.  Attention was also given to developing a national plan of action to implement the Domestic Violence Act and for its enforcement.   Major achievements include the full integration of gender issues in the annual work programmes of key sector agencies.  Relatedly, Gender Budgeting is to be piloted in three Ministries in 2008, a Policy document and Plan of Action for implementing the Domestic Violence Act has been drafted and shared with development partners and there is commitment from the government, as outlined in the 2008 National Budget Statement and Economic Policy of Government, to earmark funds to ensure gender mainstreaming and budgeting across sectors.

 

List Of Other Democratic Governance Projects

• Armed Violence, Small Arms Reduction and Human Security

• Support to National Governance Programme

• Support to Parliament

• IMPROVING HUMAN RIGHTS

• Support to Civic Education.

• Access to Justice