Mr Ibrahim Akalbila, Coordinator at the Ghana Trade and Livelihood Coalition, has proposed to government to involve Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and Women’s Rights Organisations in designing and planning budgets on gender at the national and district levels.

He said it was important for policy makers to appreciate the needs of the people for consideration into the budgeting and planning process and ensure that gender analyses were conducted regularly and consistently across regional and district levels as part of the overall development goals of the country.

Mr Akalbila made the call at a joint consultative meeting on the implementation of Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) in Tamale.

The programme, supported by Oxfam in Ghana was to collate views from stakeholders on best practices, opportunities and challenges in the implementation of GRB in their respective organisations.
It was further to discuss policy dialogue to improve on rules and laws to facilitate the adoption and implementation of GRB in the country.

Mr Akalbila advised planners to review budgets to ensure that some of the activities targeted women for positive actions before they submit such budgets for approval.

He noted that government needed to provide more logistics to increase the capacity of planners to enable them to address gender equality effectively, especially at the regional and district levels.

The participants attributed obnoxious cultural practices as key barriers to achieving gender equality at the district level and called on stakeholders to collaborate with traditional authorities to improve on guidelines and policy to enhance gender equality, especially in northern Ghana.

They also called for adequate education on gender issues during budget planning processes at the district levels as part of strategies to achieve gender equality.