Public Agenda (Accra)
Ama Achiaa Amankwah
1 December 2008
The African continent is scheduled to witness and experience development only when the economic empowerment of women is deemed a matter of more rapid and concrete development.
The UN Resident Coordinator Mr. Daouda Touré deduced that the principle of democracy includes issues of good governance and accountability that is required to ensure gender equality, hence, the efficiency of the state in this regard is important.
Mr. Touré was speaking at the launch of the "Progress of the World's Women 2008-2009 : Who Answers to Women? Gender and Accountability" report in Accra.
It is a biennial report by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) which reveals that stronger accountability mechanisms for tracking progress on gender equality are needed in order to meet national and international commitments to women's rights.
Mr. Touré noted the origin of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, (which includes that of women), CEDAW and the Beijing Platform among others give governments no excuse than to guard the moral fibre of society through accountability.
"We all need to collectively ensure that we push government to set the pace for accountability which of course includes gender equality and empowerment."
He urged governments, civil society organisations and the public to dedicate themselves to the spirit and letter of women empowerment, stressing on the need to focus on rural women.
The report states that women continue to face barriers to health, education and agricultural support and other problems that are often not addressed and even when they are addressed, are done piecemeal due to inadequate accountability systems.
The National Programme Coordinator of UNIFEM, Ghana, Mrs. Afua Ansre described the report as timely in the context of the focus of building national capacity within the aid effectiveness agenda.
"The report argues that good governance needs women's engagement to ensure effective and accountable governance for all. Ghana is a leader in democratic development in the region, this report offers practical guidance on effective means of improving governance from a gender perspective by improving women's access to decision-making arenas and by building-in incentives for answering to women's needs."
"Progress of the World's Women 2008/2009" provides an assessment of each of the Millennium Development Goals from a gender perspective and focuses on five key areas where urgent action is required to strengthen accountability to women : politics and governance, access to public services, economic opportunities, justice and the distribution of international assistance for development and security.
According to the report, public service delivery that responds to women's needs is the real litmus test of government accountability.
The report notes that even though in the last decade female parliamentarians at the national level has increased by 8% to a global average of 18.4%, developing countries will still not reach the parity zone of 40 - 60 % until 2045.
"Quotas or other special measure are effective in ensuring progress: women hold an average of 19.3 % of parliamentary seats in countries that applied some form of electoral quota, compared to 14.7 % in countries with no quotas," it added.
The lead author of the report, who is also the UNIFEM Chief Advisor on Governance, Peace and Security, Ms Anne Marie Goetz noted that it is less well-known that there are gender-specific accountability failures that must be addressed to ensure that aid and other resources respond effectively to women's needs.
"The report highlights the efforts of millions of women the world over to expose discrimination and demand redress. It emphasizes also the responsibility of international aid and security institutions to improve their own accountability and meet their commitments to invest in gender equality," she added.
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