Women’s participation in local governance enhanced through AWMA, Canada Fund Initiative

The Alliance for Women in Media Africa (AWMA), with support from the Canada Funds for Local Initiatives (CFLI), has organised a stakeholders’ forum, to highlight the centrality of the media’s role in enhancing women’s participation in Ghana’s local governance.

The event forms part of a series of engagements and activities outlined by AWMA, to boost the participation of women in the upcoming 2023 District Assembly and Unit Committee elections.

The project will also build the capacity of Journalists on local governance and ethical gender reporting.

In her key-note address, the Chairperson of STAR – Ghana Foundation’s Governing Council, Dr. Esther Ofei-Aboagye, brought to the fore the numerous challenges women face as viable governance alternatives.

“Women should be interested in and encouraged to enter and vie for positions in local governance, yet they are hamstrung by the lack of campaign resources, social hindrances such as stereotypes, concerns of public abuse, time constraints, and lack of support from power brokers,” she noted.

Underscoring the media’s role in promoting higher levels of inclusivity in local governance, Dr. Ofei-Aboagye stressed, “while there is the need for a multi-stakeholder collaboration in addressing these barriers, the media has a role to play in uniting Ghana around a broad-based agenda with common goals, values and aspirations around engendering local governance.”

“Women’s visibility and participation must be promoted beyond cleavages and factions around ethnicity, religion, partisan allegiances, gender and social status,” she observed.

The Chairperson of STAR–Ghana Foundation’s Governing Council, further argued that it was paramount women’s perspectives and insights were factored into local-level deliberative processes because women were, “rights-holders as citizens and residents of the communities they live in, and clients of the services municipalities and local authorities provide.

“They are also investors in the local economy; primary users and managers of public and private spaces, contributors to the social sustenance, and primary socializers of children, carers for ill family members and the aged.”

In his remarks, the Charge d’ Affaires of the High Commission of Canada in Ghana, John Crysler, indicated that Canada’s adoption of a feminist approach undergirded all its work and was at the heart of all policy and programme decisions. It was against this backdrop, therefore, that it sought to partner with and support initiatives that promoted “the participation of women in decision-making and governance.”

Exhorting the pivotal role of women in societies globally, Mr. Crysler noted, “We know that when you have diversity in decision-making at all levels, you get better policy outcomes.”



He further observed, it was in the interest of all to remove barriers to women’s full participation in political life, and charged the media to “make a great difference with their voice and stories.”

A panel discussion, which was also held during the forum, revealed critical insights.

The Executive Director of Women, Media and Change (WOMEC), and a panelist, Dr. Charity Binka encouraged the women aspirants to make a “conscious effort to identify and build relationships with media persons, make the media work for them and, most importantly, have an appealing and consistent message that easily identifies them.”

Another panelist, the General Secretary of the National Association of Local Authorities in Ghana (NALAG), Mr. Kokro Amankwa decried the media’s failure to consciously rope female political aspirants into the political discourse. “You as media persons, must create platforms for these women aspirants, and not call them only as ‘last-minute alternatives’,” he bemoaned.

In sharing her almost sixteen (16) – years’ experience in local governance, the Assembly Woman for the Westland Electoral Area, Dr. Victoria Assah-Ofei, admonished the women aspirants to adopt an attitude of self-belief and confidence, build and nurture relationships, as well as make themselves available for the media.

Adding to the views shared by her colleague panelists, the Director of the Electoral Services Department of the Electoral Commission of Ghana, Madam Abigail Dentaa Amponsah Nutakor, entreated the media to help amplify the voices and messages of the women aspirants through their affiliates.

She noted, “Your media affiliates in the districts can get the list of the women candidates from the district electoral commission offices, after the nominations, and amplify their messages and encourage the masses to vote for them.”

Solidarity messages were shared by various civil society organisations and partners, and were reflective of the overarching theme of the engagement.

The stakeholders’ forum which, took place on October 19 at the GNAT Hall in Accra, attracted a diverse audience from media, civil society groups, women aspirants, academia, government, among others, also marked the official launch of AWMA’s project, “Enhancing inclusive participation in local governance in Ghana through capacity-building for journalists and female political aspirants.”

The forum follows a community dialogue, held at the Nima/Maamobi Community Library to promote the overall cause of the project.

Speaking after the event the Convenor for AWMA, Shamima Muslim charged the media to make themselves available for the various capacity building on local governance and ethical gender reporting programmes that AWMA will be conducting as part of the project.

The CFLI-funded project, spans a six-month period and seeks to improve women’s participation in local governance by supporting their communication and visibility efforts to enhance their attractiveness to voters as viable alternatives. With the next district assembly elections scheduled for December this year (2023), the project aims to identify and support female candidates competing in three regions in Ghana (Greater Accra, Ashanti and Northern) to enhance their visibility and attractiveness to voters, and ultimately their election and participation in local

governance.

In addition, the project envisages strengthening the capacity of local media personnel and leaders (in districts where female candidates are contesting) to provide active, ethical, gender neutral coverage for female candidates.

AWMA is a progressive and vibrant non-partisan, non-profit group of women from across the media industry dedicated to advocacy aimed at promoting Gender Parity by increasing the visibility and impact of women in the Ghanaian media. The Alliance also works to better represent the voices and stories and images of women and girls in the society.

AWMA was set up in 2017 and currently has over 200 members on its network who work and have varied expertise in print, television, radio, online, creative media and corporate communication and who are committed to working towards achieving parity in the Ghanaian media.