Government should review legal guidelines on gender
They said as a signatory to the Beijing Platform of Action, government had the duty to uphold the tenets.
Ms Hamida Harrison, Convener of Women's Right Coalition (WRC) called on the government to establish a legal platform based on an optimal technique, that focus on national priorities to facilitate fundamental structural changes within the assembly concept.
She said women in Ghana were still confronted by limited options and formidable social, economic and cultural barriers that had affected women's inclusiveness in decision-making.
Ms Harrison said: "Without women in prominent positions in local government and national legislatures, it is unlikely that the full scale of gender issues would be addressed.
Ms Harrison identified women's participation in politics and policymaking as a core concern in the struggle for equity and social justice.
Dr Esther Ofei-Aboagye, Director of ILGS said the consultation platform was captured in the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) Election 2008 Manifesto, which outlined the vision and direction for a Better Ghana.
Dr Ofei-Aboagye noted that after years of under-performance, Ghanaians had become cynical about the assemblies, therefore the review process was intended to rekindle popular interest in local governance and local level democracy.
Dr Offei-Aboagye said an expert advisory group had also been instituted to collate the outputs from the consultations and generate inputs for the national stakeholder consultation envisaged at the end of the year.
He said it would also provide an opportunity for gender activists to examine the interpretations of the concept of decentralisation and issues that had arisen in the different sectoral approaches to its operation.
Others are Ghana Trade Union Congress, Institute for Democratic Governance, Women Initiative for Self Empowerment, the Coalition on the Women's Manifesto, NETRIGHT Coalition and Coalition on the Domestic Violence Law.
GNA