Public Agenda (Accra)
Frederick Asiamah
3 July 2009
The last decade in Ghana has seen a great deal of research-based advocacy and capacity building by gender-based organisations. These activities have involved many actors. In this profile, the Gender Studies and Human Rights Documentation Centre (the Gender Centre for short) justifies its involvement in the struggle for gender equity and makes a case for certain policy reforms.
Its first concern is that justice delivery is too slow and efforts toward securing equitable access to justice for both men and women seem to be suffering a setback owing to the frequent adjournment of court cases. Many women in local communities have become fed up with the system due to these adjournments. The issue needs prompt attention to bring back the confidence of women as far as the quest for justice is concerned, according to Mrs. Margaret Brew-Ward, Programme Manager of the Gender Centre.
Background
The Gender Studies and Human Rights Documentation Centre was established in 1995 as a non-profit, non-governmental organization committed to the promotion and protection of the human rights of women. It envisions a society where women's rights are fully promoted and protected, and where women are able to participate in national development at all levels. This informs a mission to create a knowledge base through research, advocacy and allied activities on issues of critical importance to women aimed at law and policy reform.
Out of the vision and mission have emerged five core objectives. "Our core objective is to research into key issues that affect women's human rights," said Mrs. Brew-Ward. The full list of objectives include: to research on key women's rights issues to provide evidence for advocacy for legal and policy reform; to maintain and coordinate a resource centre with both national and international publications on gender and human rights; and to develop and publish materials on various subjects related to women's human rights. The others are to support the development of networks and coalitions for improved policy and legal advocacy on women's rights issues; and to provide training to major stakeholders in areas of human rights, gender, counseling, alternative dispute resolution, project planning and implementation, lobbying, advocacy, rights awareness, and leadership development for women.
Strengths
The Programme Manager posits that the Gender Centre's most potent ability is to conduct a research, interpret and translate the findings into a community-based project. We can say that the Centre has good reputation in terms of delivering good quality programmes. The Gender Centre (GC) is also both responsive and proactive and uses opportunities as they arise.
As well, the strength of the GC is in a multi-skilled staff, which is knowledgeable in issues of violence against women and children, has training capabilities, is well-versed in proposal writing, and has project management skills. Again, the GC has a unique style of not being directly involved in the implementation of projects but builds the capacity of local partners and involves them in the conceptualization, design, implementation and monitoring of interventions for communities.
The changing face of advocacy calls for constant updating and upgrading of knowledge base and expertise. In response to this, the GC has embarked on a human resource and organizational development process aimed at building its capacity to meet the current and emerging demands in its external environment.
Over the years, GC has also developed a good track record of prudent financial management and integrity with development partners.
Networking
It is not the tradition of the GC to work in isolation. "We work with like-minded organisations", says the Programme Manager. She adds that networking and collaboration constitute one of the GC's core strategies and it allows for learning and pooling of resources for advocacy on women's rights. She names ABANTU, the Ark Foundation, the Women Initiative for Self Empowerment (WISE), the International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA)-Ghana, and the Women in Law and Development in Africa (WILDAF - Ghana) as like-minded organisations which are implementers. GC plays a lead role in three coalitions namely the Network for Women's Rights in Ghana (NETRIGHT), the Domestic Violence Coalition and the Women's Manifesto Coalition.
Also, the GC has, at one time or the other, implemented community level programmes through the following partner organisations in various parts of Ghana: General Agricultural Worker's Union (GAWU), Centre for Development of People (CEDEP), Amassachina Self Help Association, and the Bawku East Women's Development Association (BEWDA), Prolink and Rural Watch.
There are also state agencies that are partners either directly or indirectly. "At the district level where we are working, all our training programmes involve the police, Department of Social Welfare and the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ)," according to Mrs. Brew-Ward. Other agencies are the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) and the Ministry of Health.
The list of stakeholders cannot exclude chiefs and community members. The GC also recognizes the importance of the media. Mrs Brew-Ward says creating public awareness involves great amount of advocacy which in turn requires the use of the media, especially radio stations.
Funding
The Programme Manager describes GC's donors as like-minded organisations which support the GC "either financially or non-finacially." These include Comic Relief (UK), WOMANKIND Worldwide (UK), Ghana Research and Advocacy Programme (G-RAP), Department for International Development (DFID) of UK, the Royal Netherlands Embassy, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and AWDF.
WOMANKIND has served as a channel for GC's major donors Comic Relief, and again was a channel for DFID's support for GC's latest project titled Gender, Violence Against Women and HIV/AIDS, which kicked off last May. Mrs. Brew-Ward also mentioned the Ghana Aids Commission as funding a project being executed in partnership with Prolink in the Volta Region.
She could not also forget G-RAP's one-a-half year core support valued at $150,000 for the period July 2008 to December 2009. She said the G-RAP funding was timely, coming at a time "when the Comic Relief funding had ended and we were still looking for funding because we had developed the HIV project" That G-RAP support helped us concentrate on proposal development and-sent proposal to AWDF." Consequently, GC has secured funding from AWDF. In sum, the G-RAP funding has helped GC to put its systems in place such as strengthen its board, communication plan and revise strategic plan.
Activities
The GC's core objectives also constitute its programme areas. The Programme Manager points out that the Centre has been "focusing on reducing violence against women for the past ten to thirteen years-and also promoting gender equality." It adopts research, use of pilots, working with partners, community based approach, networking and alliance building, and capacity building for staff, partner NGOs and state agencies as key strategies to execute its programmes.
There are two major research publications to the credit of the GC. The first Violence against Women and Children in Ghana, published in 2000 was the result of a 1998 study across the country. By mid-June 2009, the second paper, The Role of Gender Norms and Domestic Violence in Increasing Women and Girls' Vulnerability to HIV/AIDS infection (2009), which resulted from another nationwide research, was going through final editing.
"The research report was used to advocate for the passage of the Domestic Violence Act in Ghana" Also, we used the findings to develop a project we called the Nkyinkyim Anti-Violence Projec. The thrust of that community-based project was "to provide support to abused women and children even though in the end some men also used the facility or system at the community level."
The Nkyinkyim Project, funded by Comic Relief through WOMANKIND, has since 2005 been expanded from three to 15 communities in four districts of four regions and is being implemented through four partner organisations. In the Atwima-Nwabiagya District of the Ashanti Region, CEDEP is implementing the programme at Kwanfinfi, Nkrumah, Nyinawusu and Serebuoso. GAWU holds the fort in Akawani, Old Ntronang, Akenkase and Atobriso all in the Kwaebibirem District of the Eastern Region. In the Upper East Region, BEWDA implements the project at Teogo, Lamboya, Saaka and Yikurugu in the Bawku West District. Lastly, Amassachina manages the project at Chansa, Danko and Kperisi in the Wa Municipality of the Upper West Region.
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