Ghana raps UN for women economic empower

Nana Oye Lithur, Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, has called on United Nations to make a strong commitment for the economic empowerment of women.

She said Ghana, has demonstrated a commitment to enhance women’s access to economic opportunities and their active involvement in economic growth and development.

Speaking at the side event of the UN General Assembly meeting in New York, on theme: “Transforming Economies: Empowering Women and Girls Special,” Nana Oye Lithur noted that enhancing women’s access to economic opportunities and their active involvement in economic growth and development would be achieved by providing access to finance and ensuring gender equality in employment.

Nana Oye Lithur said Ghana has adopted measures through strengthening the legal and policy framework to ensure gender empowerment and gender mainstreaming.

The Gender Minister affirms Government’s commitment to empower women through social protection, especially female food crop growers who are the poorest of the poor.

The side event was hosted by the UK Secretary of State for International Development, Justine Greening and the Executive Director for UN Women, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.

The year is a landmark for gender equality and women’s rights. It marks the 20th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women held in China and the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, still considered the most comprehensive blueprint on advancing women’s rights.

Taking an in-depth look at the actions needed to accelerate efforts for women worldwide, UN Women is organising a series of events during the week of the UN General Assembly bringing together partners from civil society, Member States and the private sector.

Nana Oye Lithur said over the past three years seven bills related to gender equality and child rights are being considered, and two policies have been adopted on child rights and gender.

The third on social protection is under consideration.” Some of the Bills introduced include the Affirmative Action Bill, Property Rights of Spouses Bill and Intestate Succession Bill.

Nana Oye Lithur said the Gender Ministry would continue to work “to protect rural girls from child marriages, abduction and child trafficking”.

The UK Secretary of State for International Development, Justine Greening noted that girls and women are one of the best and one smartest development investments that can be made.

She said: “When girls stay in school for just one extra year of primary school that can boost their eventual wages by 10 to 20 per cent,” and when “women get extra earnings, they will then reinvest that back in their families and back in their communities”.

It is therefore a “double win for development,” Justine Greening observed that a World Bank research shows that “half of women’s productive potential globally is completely underutilised,” and for men it was just a fifth.

She said there’s the urgent need to leverage more finances to invest on gender equality more broadly, not just in terms of international development investment, but financing from the private sector, from philanthropists and from domestic resource mobilization, to make sure that the level of investment that is needed to get the change required is there.

The side event was used to call upon global leaders from government, the private sector, civil society and development institutions to make commitments that will deliver transformative change on the new Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets on women’s economic empowerment.

The meeting secured concrete commitments for transforming women and girls’ economic opportunities under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The post-2015 development agenda offers a real opportunity to drive lasting change for women’s rights and equality, and to bring universal, comprehensive and transformative change in women’s and men’s lives.

The post-2015 development agenda to be adopted at the UN Summit places strong emphasis on gender equality and women’s empowerment in order to achieve the sustainable development agenda, with a transformative stand-alone the SDG addresses structural barriers to women’s empowerment and also important targets on gender equality in other goals.

Taking an in-depth look at the actions needed to accelerate efforts for women worldwide, UN Women is organising a series of events during the week of the UN General Assembly bringing together partners from civil society, Member States and the private sector.