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Three out of six Women in Agriculture District Platforms have been inaugurated in Nadowli, Jirapa and Nandom Districts of the Upper West Region with a call on members to rise up and advocate the improvement of agriculture in their districts.
The platforms are formed under the Northern Ghana Governance Activity (NGGA) which is a five-year initiative being funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Ghana.
The project is targeted at 28 districts in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions with CARE International Ghana, Action Aid Ghana, SEND Ghana and the West Africa Network for Peace-building (WANEP-Ghana) serving as the implementing partners. Madam Ruby Wuni, NGGA Women in Agriculture Coordinator called on members to rise up and advocate the improvement of agriculture in their districts. She cited lack of access to inputs, farm land and reliable agriculture information as some of the challenges that confronted women in agriculture.
Madam Ruby said the negligence of women at decision making levels explained the importance of the NGGA which would put all women in agriculture in the three beneficiary regions on a common platform to give them a stronger voice that would enable them to articulate their views in agriculture.
Mr Malik Gbene, NGGA Monitoring and Evaluation Officer said the project’s primary focus was on agriculture and would seek to partner with the District Assemblies, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) and other NGOs in the sector in order to turn around the dwindling fortunes of agriculture in the three selected regions.
He said the essence of the NGGA was to establish strong and vibrant platforms of women in agriculture at the district and regional levels that would serve as platforms for active articipation in local governance and also to ensure gender responsiveness in district agricultural policies and programmes.
Mr Gbene said it would also help build the capacity of women networks to empower them to effectively engage government authorities and other agriculture sector actors for improved livelihoods and food security. He added that the platforms would also facilitate the incorporation of gender issues into district Assembly annual and medium term development plans and budgets.
