He said they needed to take their destiny into their own hands and continue to demand for reforms that would bring about the needed gender balance.

Mr.Latsu said there was no gain-saying that women were under-represented in local governance, hence the need for all to work relentlessly to uplift their status regarding decision-making and governance at the grassroots level.

Gender balance

He said it was important to underscore that the Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs) 5 “seeks to achieve gender balance and equality in decision-making through the empowerment of women and girls.”

Mr Latsu made these remarks at a forum organised for the Menuso Muslim Women Association at Menuso in the Kadjebi District in the Volta Region.

The forum was meant to educate the women on the need to participate in the governance processes of the country.

He said it would be difficult to achieve that enviable goal if women and girls issues were not taken seriously by local and national policy-makers.

Mr Latsu said although there were so many women/gender non-governmental organisations (NGOs) or groups, one might not be far from wrong that their impact had not been felt so much in some of those areas.

Achieving results

“Perhaps this is the time for these groups to pool their resources together and act in a concerted and coordinated manner to achieve results”, he said.

A Civic Education Officer of the NCCE, Miss Delight Ama Serwa Akey, called on the women to be involved in the decision-making processes at all levels since such engagements were vital.

That, she said, would help deepen the country’s governance system, saying participatory democracy occurred when people were involved in the decision-making process.

Ms Akey said the process must be devoid of political capture to achieve the desired results.

She also advised the women to send the girl-child to school, rather than pushing them into marriage.

The Assembly member for the Menuso Electoral Area, Mr Baba Abdul Rahman, thanked the NCCE? for the educative programme which had enlightened them on the need to be involved in the governance process.

Mr Rahman appealed to the Kadjebi District Assembly and benevolent organisations to help complete the Menuso E.P Primary School Teachers Bungalow project initiated by the community in 2015.