Parents asked to educate the girl-child

Nana Bram Okae II, Municipal Chief Executive of Amasaman, on Wednesday reiterated the need for parents to strive hard to educate the girl-child and be actively involved in their academic, social and spiritual development.

"Until recently most parents did not find the need to educate the girl-child no matter how intelligent they were,” he said.

“It is very true that if a girl is educated the whole nation benefits," he added in a speech at this year's World Rural Women's Day celebration at Amasaman, near Accra.

The day was set aside to recognize achievements of rural women and educate them on climate change, its negative effects as farmers and how to manage these effects.

Climate change is a long-term significant change in the average weather that a given region experiences. Average weather may include average temperature and precipitation and wind patterns. It involves changes in the variability or average state of the atmosphere over durations ranging from decades to millions of years.

Touching on this year's theme; "Climate Change: Rural Women are Part of the Solution", Nana Okae said there was the need for women to be aware of the consequences due to their immense contribution towards economic development through crop farming and food processing estimated at about 60 per cent.

He urged women to help reverse some of the negative effects associated with global warming by embarking on sustainable agricultural practices, land restoration, controlled grazing, burning, environmentally sound farming and forest conservation.

Mrs Salwa Amber, Senior Policy Officer of Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, called on Africans to constantly reflect on problems on the continent like poverty and hunger and find measures to curtail them.

"This is because nearly half of 800 million hungry people in the world today are located in sub-Saharan Africa," she said.