Israeli Embassy, Henry Djaba Foundation, train aspiring assembly women

The Embassy of Israel, in partnership with the Henry Djaba Foundation and the German International Agency, is building the capacity of aspiring assemblywomen to empower them to fully participate and win the upcoming District Assembly Elections.

More than 100 women aspirants are being trained under the “Women to win Elections” initiative, which is being rolled out in three zones of the country; Southern, Middle, and Northern.

They would be taken through the District Assemblies Election Guidelines, Electioneering Tactics and Campaign Strategies, Branding, Communication Skills to build their confidence level, and how to raise funds to carry out their campaigns.

At a workshop hosted at the Embassy of Israel on Monday, in Accra, Ms Otiko Djaba, the Founder and Executive Director of the Henry Djaba Foundation, told the Ghana News Agency that the workshop would build the capacity of more women to take up leadership positions.

She said it marked the beginning of a series of training programmes for women all over the country to equip them to win elections at the grassroots, which was the best place to serve humanity.

“The whole objective is to build the confidence of women to go for elections, and give them understanding of how to campaign and how to win elections,” Ms Djaba said.

The former Gender Minister and National Women’s Organiser of the New Patriotic Party said there were only about 6.8 per cent women representation at the District Assembly level, and about 13.8 per cent in Parliament, which was not good enough.

“We have over 6,000 assembly members but there are only about a I,000 women at the various assemblies, which is not good enough,” Ms Djaba said, adding that the 2030 SDGs called for equity and equality and so Ghana needed to close that gap.

“The time has come to increase the representation of women in decision-making to help Ghana accelerate her development agenda.”

Ms Djaba encouraged the women to be persistent and rise in their pursuit for political office, adding that though she wished to stay off active politics, she had to nurture and build capacities of many young women to take up political positions and contribute to making a better society.

“Women bring a different dimension and understanding on how to handle issues ….. and so issues of sanitation, water, education, peace and security, which are critical indicators of development, could best be pursued by women,” she said.

She called on those with the desire to enter into politics to reach out to the Foundation for the needed capacity building.

She urged all Ghanaians to vote for the women aspiring to be assembly members so they could engage in local politics to ensure a balanced society.

Mrs Shani Cooper, the Israeli Ambassador to Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone, said the Embassy decided to partner the Henry Djaba Foundation to help groom more females for the local assemblies.

She said Israel had, over her 60 years relationship with Ghana, been supporting capacity building programmes in Ghana and Israel, in agriculture, health, politics and women empowerment.

Mrs Cooper said the “Women to win Elections” initiative would help them understand local politics, which affected and impacted every aspect of the society.

Hajia Alimatu M. Issah and Ms Comfort Dabo, both aspiring assembly members, at the end of the workshop, said they were satisfied with the training, which provided an important platform to build their capacity to contest favourably in the elections.