Attended largely by Indian women in Ghana, women from the academia, politics and civil society organisations, the programme afforded the women the opportunity to highlight some of the achievements of women, challenges in women empowerment and the way forward in addressing those challenges, among others.

The Indian High Commissioner to Ghana, Manish Gupta, eulogising the achievements of women, made mention of policies and programmes that were introduced in his country to empower women that, today, had seen many more women in leadership positions in India.

For instance, he said, aside from having more women in parliament now, they also have women in the armed forces and as pilots, which was different in the past.

He also touched on his country’s assistance to Ghana in the area of empowering women, including granting scholarships to them.

Investing in women

The Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection designate, Dakoa Newman, said investing in women was not only an economic strategy but included their human, social and health rights needed to attain full gender equality.

She, therefore, called for policies that would enhance equality, equity and the full integration of women into the national development process for sustainable growth.

Ms Newman urged all to create an environment that would help promote diversity, investment and effective collaboration for women in Ghana and globally.
“We are obliged to promote the rights of women and girls, and integrate gender into national planning and budgeting to address inequalities which will lead to a more inclusive society,” she said.
Ms Newman mentioned that the government’s efforts in promoting gender equality and women empowerment were evident in the enactment of laws, development of policies, strategies and commitments to international instruments.

The four women who participated in the panel discussions acknowledged that although a lot had been done over the years to improve the lot of women, especially in health and education, a lot more needed to be done.

The panellists were the UNDP Representative in Ghana, Dr Angela Lusigi; Dorcas Coker-Appiah of the Gender Studies and Human Rights Documentation Centre; the President of Indian Women’s Association in Ghana, Vinisha Daryanani, and the Managing Director of Media Reach OMD Ghana, Taniya Mondal.

International Day

March 8 every year is observed globally as IWD to celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women

The UN theme for this year’s celebration is “Invest in women, accelerate progress”.