Mahama Government Commitment To Gender Inclusion Must Go Beyond Appointments
President John Mahama's commitment to gender inclusion is being commended but stakeholders insist there is room for inclusion
Data from the Ghana Statistical Service on the 2021 Population and Housing Census indicated that women constituted 50.7% of the country’s population. This has seldom been reflected in decision-making at the highest levels of governance.
The Mahama administration appears mixed on this front, earning praise for platforming the first woman Vice-President in Ghana's history while the leading substantive ministers have seen a significant drop in inclusion.
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The share of women appointed as substantive ministers has dropped from 20% under the 2021 Akufo-Addo administration, to 15% under Mahama with the four women he nominated to be ministers, sans regional minister nominations.
Mahama notably had the record for the highest share in the Fourth Republic with 27% at the start of his 2013 administration.
While attention may be on the surface drop in the number of women appointees for substantive ministries, it is worth noting that these figures could increase significantly with future reshuffles and reappointments.
Enam Gifty Gbedevi, a spokesperson of the governing National Democratic Congress, maintained to YEN.com.gh that the state agency appointments were just as critical.
Mahama so far appears to be trending in the right direction with the appointment of women to key government institutions.
Women have been appointed to head key state agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency, Ghana Investments Promotions Centre and the Petroleum Commission.
Gbedevi hopes the women to live the expectations of them in their various offices.
"John Dramani Mahama is doing marvellously with the appointment of women to the various institutions to head it and I tell you we are going to see so many changes coming to those particular institutions.”
This notwithstanding, acknowledge that these appointments, which are political positions, are expected to remain male-dominated.
The 1992 Constitution of Ghana guarantees women's political rights, but there is still limited female representation in government and many public spaces.
The Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research has noted that there is critical underinvestment in women in politics, who ultimately form the pool of persons selected for national leadership roles.
Political party campaigns are expensive, and there is critical underinvestment in women’s campaigns in Ghana.
The last 10 years of Ghana’s performance in the Global Gender Gap Index have revealed stagnating trends similar to the overall global growth in gender equality.
The Global Gender Gap Index indicated mere decimal point improvements between 2012 and 2020 which was 68% to 68.6%, even dropping to 68.1% in 2022 in the overall global average index.
Ghana is described as having a mediocre position in this regard. The 2021 Global Gender Gap Index by Afrobarometer also ranked Ghana 117th out of 156 countries.
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Amanda Clinton, a lawyer and the first woman to contest to head Ghana's football governing body, stressed that the country could not afford to leave half its population on the sidelines of governance.
"By investing in women’s leadership and ensuring equitable representation, the nation will not only achieve fairness but also benefit from the diverse perspectives essential for effective governance."
The trend from Mahama so far indicates that leadership positions in Parliament are key to future leadership roles in a government. Most of his appointments so far were ranking members in Parliament and vocal on national issues in opposition. Most of these positions were occupied by men.
In the last Parliament, the NDC had only 19 out of its 136 MPs being women. Some of them were out of contention to be ministers because they lost their seats. The law requires that at least half of all ministers must be appointed from Parliament.
In Ghana, however, women continue to face multidimensional inequalities like lack of funding and abuse which prevent them from participating fully in the country's body politic.
"Unless this trend is reversed, it will be challenging to achieve equitable gender representation in the executive branch," Clinton noted.
Importance of Mahama taking bottom-up approach
Regardless of the women who make it at the highest levels, Gbedevi stressed that gender representation, or lack thereof, at the lower levels in politics would serve as a foundation for what every progress Ghana hopes to achieve.
For her, the Mahama government's commitment to gender inclusion must go beyond appointments. She is a party to the politics at the grassroots levels, where women are still sidelined.
Gbedevi stressed that there needed to be a bottom-up approach to ensure more lasting change in gender representation and charged women in positions of influence to be active in advocating for women at the grassroots.
"The women [given key appointments] shouldn’t fail the younger ones looking up to them," Gbedevi said. "You don’t only sit in your office as a CEO or deputy CEO or as a minister and stay there.”
Proofread by Bruce Douglas, senior copy editor at YEN.com.gh
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Source: YEN.com.gh
