Gender Equality: A cornerstone of dev't

Published in the Daily Graphic on 20/03/2010, pg 11

Story: Matilda Attram
Gender equality (also known as gender equity, gender egalitarianism, or sexual equality) is the goal of attaining equality of the genders or the sexes. This stems from a belief in the injustice of the myriad of gender inequalities.
World bodies have defined gender equality as related to human rights, especially women's rights and economic development. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) defines gender equality as "levelling the playing field for girls and women by ensuring that all children have equal opportunity to develop their talents.
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) declared gender equality "first and foremost, a human right”. The importance of gender equality is underscored by its inclusion as one of the eight Millennium Development Goals. Gender equality is acknowledged as being a key to achieving the other seven goals. Gender equality is, first and foremost, a human right.
Women are entitled to live in dignity and in freedom from want and from fear. Empowering women is also an indispensable tool for advancing development and reducing poverty. Empowered women contribute to the health and productivity of whole families and communities and to improved prospects for the next generation. Every single goal is directly related to women's rights, and societies where women are not afforded equal rights as men can never achieve development in a sustainable manner.
Yet discrimination against women and girls - including gender-based violence, economic discrimination, reproductive health inequities, and harmful traditional practices - remains the most pervasive and persistent form of inequality. Women and girls bear enormous hardship during and after humanitarian emergencies, especially armed conflicts.
Over the years, a number of organisations, both national and international, have been at the forefront of advocating for women, promoting legal and policy reforms and supporting projects that improve women's health and expand their choices in life.
In line with these objectives the Ghana Research and Advocacy Programme (G-rap), a non-governmental organisation (NGO) in Accra, has organised a national gender forum to promote gender equality in the country.
It was on the theme ‘Civic Engagement for Gender Equality and Good Governance in Ghana: Sharing Experiences, Contesting Spaces, Renewing Commitments’.
The two-day forum provided participants the opportunity to share ideas on key issues pertaining to gender equality and the challenges involved, as well as to find measures to help solve gender problems.
They discussed issues on gender and climate change, gender equality, contesting media space, advocating women’s economic justice, and men as partners in promoting gender equality and using good governance to encourage pro-poor policy formation and advocacy that would create a platform to engage stakeholders in gender issues.
The Minister for Women and Children’s Affairs, Mrs Juliana Azumah-Mensah, stressed the need to factor gender issues in every nation’s governance programme to enhance national development.
She said realising the need to make governance gender responsive in order to cater effectively for the different needs of men, women, children and underprivileged people, a national women’s machinery had been established to support women's participation in decision-making.
Mrs Azumah-Mensah said the government had also embarked on programmes and activities that contributed to increasing women's participation in local governance in the country.
She, however mentioned inadequate human and financial resources, inadequate capacity for gender policy analysis and the continuous low level of participation of women in governance and other levels of public decision-making as some of the challenges facing the country in making governance gender responsive.
A Reviewer and Lecturer of the University for Development Studies, Dr Agnes Apusigah, explained that the relationship between men and women in the allocation of resources without discrimination was a step toward gender equality, adding that the G-rap was involved in the promotion of gender equality due to the limited attention given to gender issues in the country.
She said G-rap promoted gender equality programmes to support the advocacy on poverty reduction as its contribution towards national development.
Dr Apusigah called on stakeholders to help strengthen structures that promoted gender equality to enhance diverse ideas that would promote the country’s development.