WORKSHOP ON GENDER RESPONSIVE BUDGETING HELD (PAGE 17)

THE United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Resident Representative, Mr Daouda Toure, has commended the government for its commitment to promoting gender responsive budgeting (GRB) to address issues affecting women and girls in the country.
Such effort, he said, was one of the cornerstones for achieving good governance, promoting gender equity and equality as well as reducing poverty among women and girls.
In an address read on his behalf at a three-day workshop on GRB at Akosombo, Mr Toure explained that gender responsive budgeting provided governments with the opportunity to ensure that gender concerns were addressed at the highest levels.
The workshop, on the theme “Institutional Capacity Enhancement for Effective Gender Equality and Women Empowerment Promotion”, brought together about 50 participants drawn from the Ghana Education Service, the Ministry of Health (MoH) and the Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs (MOWAC).
The workshop, among other things, aimed at educating the participants on the GRB to enhance their capacity to formulate policies, programmes and budgeting to address concerns of women and girls.
It was jointly organised by the MOWAC, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning and the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), with sponsorship from the UNDP, United Nations Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
Mr Toure said available data on Ghana indicated that although women constituted a larger proportion of those living below the poverty level, they were woefully under-represented in power and decision-making processes.
“Women, in spite of their larger number, continue to experience disadvantages in education, skills training, employment and access to resources,” he stated, stressing that a recent research showed that less than 0.1 per cent of the national budget was allocated to addressing gender equality and women’s empowerment issues.
To this end, he noted that the implementation of the GRB would provide the government with the opportunity to ensure that resources were directed at addressing gender concerns at the highest national level, particularly for the disadvantaged and the excluded.
He indicated that the implementation of the GRB would ensure improved accountability, efficiency and transparency on the part of governments and their representatives as well as ensure women’s empowerment and their informed participation in planning and budgeting policies.
For her part, the Minster of MOWAC, Hajia Alima Mahama, said the GRB was being implemented on a pilot basis in three ministries: MoH, the Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Environment as well as the Ministry of Food and Agriculture.
As a sequel, she said her outfit had also put together a 12-member committee to fashion how best to implement the GRB in the three ministries as well as other ministries, departments and agencies within three years.