National Gender Policy Receives Cabinet Approval

Cabinet on Friday, 14^th August, 2015 approved the National Gender Policy. The policy aims at mainstreaming gender equality concerns into the national development processes by improving the social, legal, civic, political, economic and socio-cultural conditions of the people of Ghana, particularly women, children, the vulnerable and people with special needs such as persons with disability and the marginalized. Stakeholders in the sector will be expected to take strategic policy actions including legislation, administrative reforms, resource mobilization, capacity building, awareness creation, research, monitoring and evaluation as directed by the National Gender Policy to address bottlenecks and barriers and critical issues existing alongside the successes.

The broad policy objectives are:

• Women Empowerment and Livelihoods
• Women Rights and Access to Justice
• Women Leadership and Accountable Governance
• Economic Opportunities for women
• Gender Roles and Relations

The National Gender Policy (2015) further provides broad policy guidelines, strategies and operations/actions in furtherance of government’s commitments for achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment targets in its national vision of “A stable, united, inclusive and prosperous country with opportunities for all”. The strategies to achieve these objectives include strategic partnerships and support for the Women’s Machinery and engendering employment policies in Ghana for greater inclusion, visibility and equal voice of both women and men. The policy also employs access to basic services and infrastructure including transportation, housing and ICT to achieve the policy objectives.

The policy framework will enable all stakeholders to have common understanding of the issues and strategies for addressing gender inequality and social injustice. This policy therefore, articulates development priorities from gender perspective based on current challenges and Ghana context analysis discussed in various sections.

The policy articulates issues from gender perspectives, ensuring that women and men, girls and boys as well as the vulnerable, the marginalized and persons living with disability participate and have a voice and decision-making power in governance processes.

The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection is currently developing an Action Plan for the implementation of the Policy.

ABRAHAM ASARE
COMMUNICATIONS ADVISOR