Women Candidates Support Package is laudable

Article: Salome Donkor
The important role of women in politics and public office is recognised within the framework of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). One of the indicators for monitoring MDG 3 that relates to promoting gender equality and women empowerment, is the proportion of seats held by women in national parliaments and other levels of decision-making process.
The 2005 World Summit Outcome reaffirmed the commitment to increase representation of women in government and decision-making bodies, including opportunities to participate fully in the political process.
Marked progress has been made since 1995 in the numbers of women elected to national parliaments and statistics from the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) database on women in national parliaments indicate that 20 countries achieved over 30 per cent representation of women in 2006, which compares favourably with the very short list of five countries that had achieved this in 1995 (Denmark, Finland, The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden).
The IPU database indicates that almost all of the 20 countries have used some form of electoral quotas to ensure that women account for a certain number of percentage of candidates for office or officeholders, whether through a constitutional commitment, a provision of election legislation, voluntary action by political parties, or some combination of these.
Two articles of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) deal with women’s participation in political and public life. Article 7 commits States parties to ensure equality between women and men in political and public life, including the right to vote, to be eligible for election, to participate in formulating government policy, to hold public office and to perform public functions. That provision also includes the right to participate in non-governmental organisations and other associations.
Article 8 requires States parties to ensure that women have equal opportunities with men to represent their governments at the international level and to participate in the work of international organisations. The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women provided additional guidance in the implementation of the Convention in 1997 in its General Recommendation 23, which highlighted the application of the Convention to all levels of government and to the activities of a range of organisations concerned with public and political life, including public boards, local councils, and the activities of political parties, trade unions and professional associations.
The involvement of more women in politics and decision-making is significant, since it is expected to meet their interests and basic needs and enable them to continue to influence policies from a gender perspective and address inequalities and injustices in social relationships. The full participation of women in the electoral process was also key to the growth of democracy.
The local government system has therefore become good grounds for some women who want to enter national politics. But there are various challenges that confront women intending to enter local government, which make it difficult for them to take the initiative.
To address these challenges, which include social and economic factors, the Department of Women in the various regions have been tasked to work in collaboration with the district assemblies and identify 20 women from each district to support them to take part in the forthcoming district assembly elections.
This month, the Electoral Commission (EC) also announced a package to encourage more women to contest the upcoming district level elections scheduled for October 26, this year.
Known as The Women Candidates Support Package, it is set to be introduced in recognition of the peculiar challenge women faced, with financial support from the European Union, and it will include training workshops to be attended solely by female candidates.
In 2005, with the support of the Democratic Governance Thematic Trust Fund (DGTTF), the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), the EC and the Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs undertook intensive leadership training programmes for potential women candidates for the 2006 district level elections.
In addition to this, the Women in Local Government Fund was also launched to support female contestants. Despite these, the low numbers of women in local and national politics means that it is also important to look at other methods, such as quota representation, to bridge the gap between the numbers of men and women represented in the political arena.
Ms Gloria Ofori Buadu, President of the Women Assistance Business Association (WABA), an organisation that supports women, described the EC’s initiative as a good idea but stated that there was the need to repackage these programmes well in order not to incur the displeasure of other contestants in the local elections.
She said in the last elections some male contestants used the raising of funds to support female candidates, to campaign against the women, with some of them alleging that the female candidates had been given a lot of money, while their male counterparts had none.
She also advised the EC to stick to the date fixed for the election and said in the last election, a number of the electorate lost interest in the polls as a result of the change in dates.
Some women contacted said the details of the EC’s package should be spelt out and made known to prospective contestants, to help them derive maximum benefit from the scheme, to significantly improve gender balance in decision-making at all levels.