Mrs Juliana Azumah-Mensah, the Minister of Women and Children�s Affairs (MOWAC), on Wednesday pledged the government�s commitment to strengthen Ghanaian women in senior governance positions to promote gender equality and equity under its �Better Ghana� agenda.
Taking her turn at the Meet-The-Press series in Accra, she said MOWAC had finalised its four-year medium term development plan with major
objectives including promoting the socio-economic status of women and children.
Others are the vulnerable and marginalised groups through targeted interventions and creating awareness to support implementation of
government�s development policies affecting women and children in Ghana.
Mrs Azumah-Mensah said Ghana over the past years had intervened and achieved some actions to address human trafficking and domestic violence
that had remained the hidden form of violence in Ghana and elsewhere.
She said women constituted about 80 per cent of the informal productive sector of the economy and controlled more than 50 per cent of informal
sector businesses.
Therefore the Ministry, since 2002, had been involved in the promotion of the economic rights of women by providing them with economic
opportunities to improve their livelihood.
Mrs Azumah-Mensah said a workshop on the preparation and development of national plan of action had been organised for stake holders such as civil society organizations (CSOs) and NGOs on women issues and the Ministry was in the process of establishing a network of women on peace and security in Ghana.
She announced that MOWAC had completed assessment on the mid-term review of the Commonwealth Plan of Action (COPA) on Gender Equality in 2009 and submitted to the Commonwealth Secretariat for further action.
Mrs Azumah-Mensah said MOWAC had been facing constraints which included low participation of women in decision making at all levels, low coverage of women under the social security scheme and low representation of women in
conflict management.
She said in spite of the above challenges, MOWAC intended to embark on many projects including strengthening collaboration with development partners especially NGOs and CSOs.