NALAG asks women to champion violent free-elections

Women have been asked to impress on their spouse and relations to stay away from political violence to safeguard national peace and stability, before, during, and after Election 2020.

Mr Kokro Amankwaa, the General Secretary of the Association of Local Authorities of Ghana (NALAG), noted multi-party democracy “has become part of us and we should not give way for partisan politics to divide us.”

The beauty of the nation’s democracy, he observed, was anchored on multi-party consensus, and called on women to stay awake and use potentials embedded in them productively to influence their spouse to eschew violence, in order not to cause the country into chaos.

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) on the side-lines of a capacity building training workshop for Female Assembly Women held at Fiapre in the Sunyani West Municipality, Mr Amakwaa said women and children were the most affected in any political violence and instability.

The two-day workshop was organised by NALAG with support from the Commonwealth Local Government Forum (CLGF) of the United Kingdom and attended by 94 female assembly women from Bono, Bono East, Ahafo and Western North Regions.

Mr Amankwaa indicated that issues affecting women and children dominated all aspects of social life, hence the need for them to be interested and actively engage in politics at both national and local levels.

This, he said, would create platforms for their voices to be heard, and contribute significantly to national discourse and decision making.

Mr Amankwa observed that if women were supported to aspire higher in socio-economic and political life, it would be easy for the nation to tackle daunting development challenges, and speed up rapid socio-economic growth and progress.

NALAG and its partners, he explained, was determined to ensure that the nation achieved the 30 per cent quota of women in politics, and advised the Assemblywomen to work hard and leave a befitting legacy in their respective electoral areas.

He underlined the need for the nation to address issues of gender stereotyping, religion and culture as well as economic instability that tended to be inimical to the growth and development of women, and discouraged them from engaging aspiring higher in political life and achieved their potentials.

Established in 1995, Mrs Joyce Ekuful, the West Africa Regional Programme Officer of the CLGF, explained the forum had since worked to improve on the capacity of women in local government.

She expressed the hope the female assembly members would encourage other women to avail themselves to contest District Level Elections in the coming years.