A Gender Policy has been developed to guide the work of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) across the country.

Titled “Gender mainstreaming for effective delivery for civic education,” the policy seeks to empower groups with special interests such as Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities to fully participate in the decision-making process at their local level.

The policy was formulated with the support from the United Nations Development Programme.

In a submission during the launch of the policy in Accra on Wednesday, Ms. Kathleen Addy, Chairperson of NCCE,noted that the commitment of the Commission to develop the Gender Policy was to offer equal opportunity for both genders and create a fairer playing field for all to rise.

For her, there was the need for such a policy to reset the values, adding that “the workplace is a good place to start and enforce the policy.”

She expressed strong conviction that the development of the policy would lead to a national discourse on promoting gender equity and equality towards realising the SDG 5.

Dr Angela Lusigi, UNDP Resident Representative underscored the need for the Commission to mainstream gender in its operations, which is a basis for the development of the Gender Policy.

She added that the key priority of the UNDP’s Project cycle was to impact in the lives of people, expressing the hope that an effective gender policy development would benefit the Commission.

“Ghana has committed to achieving the sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and research shows that Gender Equality is key for the achievement of all the SDGs.In this regard, this effort by NCCE to deepen gender mainstreaming through this clear policy will be essential for progress,” he stated.

She reminded all relevant stakeholders that achieving gender equality in Ghana was a collective responsibility and that “if we work together we can address gender inequalities in the society to promote an inclusive society for sustainable development.”

Dr Mrs Henrietta Yemidi, Director Research, Gender and Equality of NCCE stated that gender policy was about addressing imbalance among the genders to cover every facets of life.

She suggested the mainstreaming of gender actions into the Commission’s work at all levels and creation of internal platforms to fairly discuss gender issues.