EC set's up gender desk for women participation in elections

Accra, June 3, GNA - Authorities of Electoral Commission (EC) have established a gender desk in recognition of the importance of women participation in the electoral process, Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, Chairman of EC said on Thursday.

He said in the past, EC on its own initiative and in collaboration with other organisations made efforts to assist women candidates, but the efforts had been ad-hoc and subjected to the availability of extra resources. Dr Afari-Gyan announced this at the signing of grant contracts funded under the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) in Accra. "This is the first time that we are going to have a clearly drawn up programme of considerable duration towards tackling this important problem," he added.

He explained that the drawbacks on women's participation came from various sources and this programme would definitely not address all of them. "But if knowledge and awareness are, indeed strength, then this project could initiate a process of sustained engagement on the issue of the participation of women in the electoral process and politics generally," he stressed. Dr Afari-Gyan noted that Ghana was not an exception in the increasing women's voluntary participation in elections and politics particularly in the developing countries was not an easy task and pledged commitment of the EC to take the necessary steps to ensure that the project was properly executed. Mr Claude Maerten, Head of EU Delegation, said EC and civil society organisations had been playing instrumental role in defending the fundamental freedoms, which formed the basis for all democratic processes and in the development of instruments and advocacy to increase women's participation and representation in politics in Ghana. He noted that the upcoming district level elections as well as the national Elections in 2012 would however; take place in a particularly challenging environment in which the generation of oil resources would increase the stakes in the electoral contest. Mr Maerten said additional efforts were required to ensure that elections take place in a peaceful and transparent environment and to increase the representation of women in politics.

He expressed concern about the inadequate representation of women at all levels of government in Ghana adding "the number of women in Parliament has fallen compared to the number of women in the previous Parliament". "A situation in which women, who constitute about 51 per cent of the total population, occupy less than 10 per cent of the seats in Parliament cannot be considered fair," he added. Mr Maerten observed that one of the most important lessons from Election 2008, was the importance to increase women's representation in politics and thus to facilitate their participation in the electoral process. 3 June 10