The feat was made possible under a project fully funded by the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) entitled “Enhancing Women’s Participation in District Assembly Elections.”

The beneficiary women are Alhassan Mariam, 32, Kpano electoral area, Nanton District; Salifu Nzara, 30, Guntingli electoral area,  Yendi Municipality, who has no formal education, and Wumpini Bibiana, 34, Malshegu electoral area, Sagnarigu Municipality.

Narrating the successes story to the Ghanaian Times, the Executive Director of RUWA, Masud Aziz Rauf, noted that “women are known to be effective in promoting honest government; committed to promoting national and local policies that address the socio-economic and political challenges facing women, children and other disadvantaged groups”.

“When women join hands with men in building structures of democracy, the benefits are overwhelming. However, in Ghana, the involvement of women in making decisions that could promote the well-being of people around them is low, especially in governance.

“In most communities in Ghana, especially in northern region of Ghana, cultural barriers give men more opportunities than women and stories of elders in communities insisting that a woman should step aside for a male contestant are very common,” he said.

The strategies adopted in the campaign leading to success, included the formation of Junior Parliament Platforms (JPPs) and Junior Parliament Platform Committees (JPPCs) in the communities and tertiary institutions; Drama Performances; Video Shows; Street Procession (Float) 8th March 2019 to mark the International Women’s Day; Radio Discussions and phone-ins plus jingles and Training Sessions via workshops and meetings. 

Among the challenges enumerated was that there was the general fear that women who were not fluent in English language were not qualified to stand for the District Assembly Elections.

“But the campaign allayed the fears during the inception meetings. As it was made clear that the use of indigenous language in Assembly meetings was constitutional and officially recognised,” he added.

He said most of the communities in the Northern Region were patriarchal and for that matter tends to have traditional norms that favoured males, “but we involved traditional leaders in the campaign and so some paramount and divisional chiefs in the beneficiary districts openly declared support for the project,” he added. 

RUWA  has recommended to the government, through the Gender Ministry, the Education Ministry and traditional authorities, to take necessary action to strengthened and sustain the enrolment and retention of girls in all levels of education, to expose and empower them to be able to seize opportunities and stand the challenges of women’s participation in local level elections. 

It also urged the government to issue strict directive to MMDAs to enforce the 1998 Affirmative Action Plan (Quota of 30% District Assembly Appointee to women) to increase women’s participation in local governance and impose sanctions on recalcitrant Assemblies.

Finally, OSIWA and other funding agencies should support RUWA to upscale and replicate the project to cover the rest of the districts in the northern region of Ghana.

RUWA-GHANA has, among others, completed USAID/Ghana Feed the Future Agriculture Policy Support Project which benefited over 5,300 women farmers, youth and children in 30 communities in Wa East, Wa West and Wa Municipality in RUWA’S Agricultural Extension Services project in the Upper West Region.