Ghana narrowing gender gap in primary education

Accra, Feb. 6, GNA – A World Bank official, on Monday commended Ghana for her efforts towards narrowing gender gaps, particularly in primary school education, but stressed there remained constraints to achieving gender equality in other sectors.

Dr Markus Goldstein, Senior Economist at the Office of the Director Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Africa Region at the bank, said Ghana had to push further to encourage more women participation at the legislative level, and strengthen institutions, enact laws and regulations to tackle gender inequality.

He was speaking at a roundtable organised in Accra by the World Bank Group, to discuss findings of the 2012 World Development Report (WDR): Gender Equality and Development.

Dr Goldstein said the WDR pointed to four priority areas for policy recommendation.

They included reducing gender gaps in human capital, especially those that addressed female mortality and education, closing gender gaps in access to economic opportunities, shrinking gender differences in voice and agency within society and limiting reproduction of gender inequality across generations.

The 44-paged document showed that in many low-income countries of Sub-Saharan Africa, poor women and girls continued to face severe disadvantages particularly excessive female mortality.

To tackle the problem of female mortality, it recommended greater investments in adequate water, sanitation and waste disposal services.

The report favoured systemic improvements of institutions of medical care and services for expectant mothers as effective tool to lower maternal mortality.

Concerning Ghana, the WDR observed that equal access and treatment for women farmers could increase maize yields by 17 per cent.