Bolgatanga, Aug. 17, GNA - A one-day capacity building workshop aimed at getting Assemblywomen to sharpen their skills to enable them participate in governance and decision-making process was held on Tuesday at Bolgatanga in the Upper East Region.

The theme of the workshop was "Speak Out: Ways to Develop Your Advocacy Skills", and was sponsored by Action Aid International. The 40 participants, who were all drawn from the Upper East Region, were taken through topics such as Good Public Speaking, Debates, Campaign Strategies, Handling of Conflict and Criticism, Publicity and Promotion, Lobbying, Advocacy and how to deal with the media. Speaking at the workshop, the facilitator, Mrs Margaret Mary Issaka, impressed upon the participants on the need to become assertive when participating in governance and decision-making processes. Mrs Issaka also stressed that the workshop was aimed at equipping the Assemblywomen to prepare adequately for the 2006 district assembly elections.

The Regional Director of the National Council on Women and Development (NCWD), Ms Paullina Abayage, hoped that at the end of the workshop more women would have been skilled enough to enable them campaign effectively for re-election or re-appointed.

Ms Abayage urged the participants to encourage their fellow women to participate in governance and the decision-making process, and indicated that the "Ghana Plan for Action" document spells out the need to put in place measures for a substantial increase of women participation in governance.

This, she added, was aimed at achieving equal representation of men and women by the year 2015.

Ms Abayege further noted that, the convention of the elimination of all forms of acts of discrimination against women recommends that there was the need for more women to be integrated into the national decision-making process.

She, therefore, called on all stakeholders to join the crusade of getting more females represented in governance. 17 Aug. 05