SAVE-Ghana partners Star-Ghana

towards an all-inclusive election 2012

SAVE-Ghana has secured funding amounting to USD50,000.00 from STAR-Ghana, a multi- donor pooled funding mechanism to carry out a number of activities in 3 constituencies (Wa East, Nadowli, and Lambussie/Karni) aimed at making the 2012 presidential and parliamentary elections free, fair, peaceful, and all-inclusive. This is in line with our mandate of working for sustainable development in poor and vulnerable communities by facilitating good governance practices at the grassroots that strengthens citizens’ participation in governance and decision making processes, promoting social accountability, education and women empowerment.

The project “Credibility Watch” is intended to vigorously educate the voter population on the full implication of the vote cast and foster direct engagement between political office seekers and voters especially women, persons with disabilities and other minority groups (fulanis etc) hitherto been ignored.

The overall objective of the project is to promote equal participation of men and women and also ensure that excluded and marginalized groups of people such as persons with disabilities participate fully in the fully in election 2012 in three districts of the Upper West Region of Ghana namely Wa East, Nadowli and Lambussie/Karni

The project seeks to meet the following objectives:

1. Improve voter confidence in the 2012 voter register by increasing public interest and active participation of 40,000 eligible voters in three districts of the Upper West Region in the 2012 voter registration exercise.

2. Contribute to the credibility of the December 2012 election results of at least 500 Polling Stations in three districts of the Upper West Region.

3. Reduce the incidence of violence before, during and after the 2012 general elections in four violent-prone districts in the Upper West Region

As part of the project SAVE-Ghana has conducted a baseline study in the Wa East district have firsthand information the voter population. Specifically, the survey aimed at:

1. Assessing peoples’ attitudes towards party politics disaggregated according to age, gender, ethnicity, and social class.

2. Identifying issues that are critical for the increase in public participation in party politics, especially women, persons with disabilities etc.

3. Identifying opportunities and threats to the participation of women, youth, disabled and disadvantaged communities in governance and multi party issues.

SAVE-Ghana has also embarked on a massive campaign for potential voters to register since the start of the biometric registration exercise in partnership with the NCCE educating the voting public in these three districts to go all out to register as that is the first step towards exercising their franchise. The campaign is aimed at making elections all inclusive women, persons with disabilities, the aged etc.

Date: 19th April, 2012

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