Human Rights of Women
Ms. Faustina Otabil, Deputy Western Regional Director of the Department of Women and Children, said on Thursday that there was the need for equity and empowerment of women to realize the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) on women by 2015.
To achieve that, she said, the government is implementing a comprehensive policy framework for mainstreaming gender in Ghana’s socio-economic development agenda.
Ms Otabil said this at the Inauguration and orientation of district scholarship committees of beneficiary districts under the project in the Western Region at Takoradi.
The MOWAC, which is the project-executing agency with the Department of Women as the implementing agency, has been mandated to execute a four-year Gender Responsible Skills and Community Development (GRSCDP).
The project is funded by the government of Ghana and the African Development Bank at a cost of 14.63 million dollars.
Ms. Otabil said the project aims at promoting gender equitable socio-economic development through institutional capacity building and improvement through women’s gainful employment and entrepreneurship.
The project focuses on sustained poverty alleviation among women at both national and local levels through institutional capacity building for enhancing gender mainstreaming into national planning, monitoring and evaluation.
She said the GRSCDP would improve the lives of targeted women and further enhance their access to financial and business development services.
Ms Emelia Arthur, Deputy Western Regional Minister, said 59 Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) throughout the 10 regions were benefitting from the project.
She said MMDAs would be assisted to develop guidelines to strengthen gender focus planning, monitor and evaluate local economic development, poverty reduction, Agriculture and Infrastructure.
Other interventions would be the rehabilitation and provision of tools and equipment to improve infrastructure and training for the 25 Community Development Vocational and Technical training Institutes.
Ms Arthur said the project would also provide scholarships for 500 girls from poor households to pursue non-traditional professional trades.
She appealed to the district scholarship committees of the six beneficiary districts of the GRSCDP to work hard and in a more transparent manner in the selection and award of scholarship.