It said in as much as Ghana was developing, there were still issues of inequalities in society and emphasised the need to bridge the gap between the poor and the rich through GRB to ensure those inequalities were reduced.

The Policy Officer for the GTLC, Mr Emmanuel Wullingdool, made the call in Wa on Wednesday at a programme to train News Editors on issues of GRB, particularly in the agricultural sector.

The training formed part of the implementation of the GROW project in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions by the GTLC, an agricultural policy advocacy organisation, in partnership with OXFAM for the past two years.

Mr Wullingdool said the GTLC recognised the media as a key partner in propagating issues of GRB to ensure that stakeholders and governments took those issues into consideration in making the budget more gender responsive.

"We know that we can't do this alone so we are bringing the media onboard to equip them with the knowledge on Gender Responsive Budgeting, which they can use in their reportage", he added.

Commenting on the findings of a research conducted by the GTLC under the project, Mr Willingdoll explained that there was the need for the government to put in place deliberate efforts to ensure that more youth and women participated in the Planting for Food and Jobs programme.

"If our target is to reduce unemployment in society, if we want to empower the women, if we want to create sustainable jobs for the youth, and in such an important programme like this (PFJ) we are not getting the youth into it, then it becomes a challenge", Mr Wullingdol Explained.

He advocated a deliberate allocation of a percentage of the PFJ programme for women and youth with the fertilizer, extension, market among others, saying "the blanket rollout of the programme is not enough to get everybody on board".

Mr Wullingdool stressed the need for concerted efforts to improve the agricultural sector to enable it feed the projected 30.5 million population of the country by 2020, while providing employment and raising incomes of farmers.

Participants were taken through the concept of Gender Responsive Budgeting, gender analysis and gender mainstreaming among others to enable them to effectively report on gender issues.