Having advanced the arguments for human rights and their linkage to the development of member nations in 1948, the United Nations soon realised that the Declaration of Human Rights was not adequately facilitating the development of member nations. It has been 67 years since the Declaration was made. This year’s theme for International Women’s Day is “Empowering Women, Empowering Humanity: Picture it”. The United Nations is calling on all of us to picture it that empowering women is the more sustainable way to empower the whole of the human race. Champions of women’s rights, both women and men, have explained over and over again why we need to incorporate women’s rights in our development agenda to achieve a dignified life for girls and women. The clarion call in 2015 is to picture the empowerment of women and the benefits. What do we picture?
Although the UN Commission on the Status of Women participated in drafting the Declaration and finally succeeded in making it more inclusive, the United Nations came to the awareness that after all human rights are not by default the rights of women. This began another crusade of awareness creation and a call for development planning that recognised rights of women as well. To draw this home and with a firmer hand, it declared 1975 as the International Women’s Year. The UN demanded that member states paid attention to women’s rights and asked members to create awareness on peace, equality and development and more importantly to integrate women into all levels of development.
It has been 40 years since 1975 was declared International Women’s Year but we are still making arguments for the integration of gender into our policy formulation, development planning and monitoring. When are we going to decide on the next planning phase? Why do the wheels of women’s rights and development move so slowly? The bare truth is that the God-given and society-assigned roles and responsibilities of men and women, girls and boys are not the same. These must be critically considered in policy and development planning. The bitter truth is that in resource allocation and utilization, the gap between women and men becomes wider. Do men and women not have the same twenty-four hours in a day? Do men and women farmers have the same opportunities following up with agro-input shops on when the subsidized fertilizer from government will be available? Expending so much energy collecting firewood, cooking the family meal and taking care of the children, women have little time to pursue productive resources for economic activity. She persists because the fertilizer supply system did not consider her other roles, which would eventually make it difficult to access resource and opportunities. These gaps in gender resource allocation and development make the call to picture the empowerment of women very urgent.
To deepen the gains made within the International Women’s Year, the United Nations declared a Decade on Women (1976 – 1985) and has been following up the years for greater integration of women’s issues into development. The advocacy continued till the landmarked 1995 World Conference on Women in Beijing that produced a comprehensive forward-looking strategy document to facilitate the integration of women into development. This was the Beijing Platform for Action. The document, described by the Executive Director of UN Women, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka as the most comprehensive blueprint ever for advancing women’ rights, is still said to provide inspiration for the future. The 2015 observance focuses on what the achievements have been within 20 years of the Beijing Platform for Action and to chart a way forward.
Accordinging to the Executive Director, no country has achieved equality, and progress has been slow and uneven. However, gender gaps in education, maternal mortality, morbidity and gender inequality have reduced. Yet it is more urgent than ever that we define and stick to a time frame. What time line will you work towards as a reader of this article?
The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection has reported that Ghana has made some progress in securing the rights of women. The education sector has made some progress in achieving gender parity in school enrolment. The latest Education Sector Performance Report indicates that over the last two years, the gender parity index fell from 1.03 to 1.01. To address the challenges of limited agricultural extension services, the adoption of Female Extension Volunteers (introduced by ActionAid Ghana) has increased women’s access to extension, services, especially in northern Ghana. The passage of the Domestic Violence Act, 2007, which received lots of advocacy support from ActionAid Ghana, has addressed gender-based violence and upgraded women rights institutions such as the National Council on Women and Development to a ministerial status. These are modest but significant achievements.
As an award-winning women’s rights organization, ActionAid will continue to make girls and women’s rights the center of its activities when it launches its new Country Strategy Paper (CSP V) which would drive the organisation’s development agenda from 2015 to 2019. ActionAid Ghana intends to advance the political influence of women and girls, reduce unpaid care work of women for sustainable livelihoods and decent work whilst addressing gender based violence against women and girls to break the cycle of poverty. It will continue to work towards affirmative action and will venture into gender responsiveness in the extractive and mining sectors.
On the occasion of the 2015 International Women’s Day, ActionAid adds its voice to the call of the United Nations Secretary–General, Ban Ki-moon “We must acknowledge that the gains have been too slow and uneven, and that we must do far more to accelerate progress everywhere. …Empowered women and girls are the best hope for sustainable development following conflict. They are the best drivers of growth, the best hope for reconciliation, and the best buffer against radicalization of youth and the repetition of cycles of violence”.