MOWAC advised to reprioritise its activities - To provide skills training

Story: Salome Donkor
THE Parliamentary Committee on Gender and Children has advised the Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs (MOWAC) to reprioritise its activities in order to provide skills training for women’s groups under the ministry’s budget allocation for 2010.
The committee stated that in reviewing the performance of MOWAC in 2009, it realised that no skills training and economic support was provided for women’s groups, adding, “The committee considers this situation as unfortunate, since other activities of the ministry were undertaken to the detriment of the economic empowerment of women groups.”
This was contained in the committee’s report on the 2010 annual budget estimates of the MOWAC that was presented to Parliament on Friday by the Chairman of the committee, Mr Sampson Ahi.
It said providing skills training and economic support for women’s groups was a means of empowering women financially and thereby accelerating the socio-economic development of the country.
The committee appealed to the government to adequately resource MOWAC to enable it to deliver on its mandate. It also urged the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning not to relent in its efforts at ensuring that promises made in the budget statement were fulfilled.
It indicated that in view of government’s commitment to the empowerment of women, particularly the vulnerable, the rural and urban poor, as well as facilitating the survival, protection and development of the Ghanaian child, MOWAC’s budgetary allocation, compared to the national budget, had been below 1.0 per cent over the years.
It stated that for 2010, the budgetary requirement of MOWAC was GH¢5,344,336 but that amount had been slashed to GH¢4,139,59.
It indicated that the concept of gender was cross-cutting and inextricably linked to development, adding that if Ghana was to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, the government must demonstrate its commitment towards gender equality, the promise of empowering women, as well as the protection and development of children by allocating resources to MOWAC in future budget estimates.
The committee noted with concern the over reliance on donor funds for the programmes and activities of MOWAC and indicated, for instance, that in 2008, MOWAC was to benefit from donor funds to the tune of GH¢570,479.
It said the ministry’s projection for 2009 was GH¢6,768,571, out of which only GH¢1,752,092.94 had been released to MOWAC as of November ending.
It said in 2010, donor funds allocated to MOWAC was GH¢4,371,404, noting that although that amount had been slashed compared to the approved amount for 2009, it represented 53.62 per cent of the total budgetary allocation made to the ministry.
The committee noted that the situation was not a healthy development, since any delays or problems encountered in accessing those funds would disrupt the service and investment programmes of the ministry, thereby impacting negatively on its performance.
It also touched on the need to provide an office space for MOWAC and its departments and urged the sector minister to ensure that the construction of an office complex to accommodate the staff and the secretariats of the ministry commenced in 2010, since MOWAC had land demarcated for an office complex.
The report also touched on the outlook of the ministry for 2010 and said MOWAC would continue to collaborate with stakeholders, organisations and development partners to collectively address women’s reproductive health, infant and maternal mortality, child trafficking, child labour, streetism, irregular migration and other issues of national concern to women and children.
The ministry would also review the National Gender and Children’s Policy and ensure the Savanna Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) policy document was engendered to cater for the needs of women and children in the project areas and particularly to halt the irregular migration of young women and other youth from the northern to the southern parts of the country.