Accra, July 13, GNA - Mr Danaa Nantogmah, Programmes Co-ordinator, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) on Monday called for appropriate laws, policies, strategies and action plans to ensure the implementation of the Affirmative Action Plan.

He said translating the action into real increase in women participation in politics and decision making, would not happen by chance but more importantly, the "commitment and the political will to implement these plans to achieve gender equity in our political, social and economic life is paramount".

Speaking at the opening of a two-day meeting on "validation and strategy development on affirmative action", Mr Nantogmah said political parties were also critical to the successful implementation of the affirmative action and called on the parties to adopt action policies as part of their internal democratic process. The meeting attended by about 30 representatives from civil society and the academia will discuss, validate and develop relevant strategies to implement a broad-based consultative programme on affirmative action in Ghana.

Organised by ABANTU for Development in collaboration with Women in Broadcasting and FES, the meeting will among other things, develop strategies and an action plan to enhance advocacy efforts towards the development and implementation of the affirmative action policy. Mr Nantogmah noted that though it was workable, there was the challenge of lack of support from fellow women politicians and urged the participants to develop strategies and activities to address the issue, which had created negative perceptions about women. "If affirmative action is to yield the desire outcome, we need to shift from this 'instrumental' conception of affirmative action to a 'right-based approach', which conceives affirmative action as a fundamental human right, which must be persuasive irrespective of its impact on the public policy process". Dr Dzodzi Tsikata, a Senior Research Fellow of the University of Ghana, who presented a paper on the "Affirmative Action", said public policy was critical to the success of the action plan since it facilitate debates on the issue and influence strategic plans and budget allocation.

She said unfortunately, women had not been part of the process.

"If well designed and planned, Affirmative Action can deliver some of the indicators of progress for women," she added. Dr Tsikata explained that affirmative action provide more female role models and improve awareness of issues, allows considerable skills to be brought into decision making structures and guarantee gender balance policy making at all levels of government. She called for the need to anchor affirmative action in a discourse of reversing discrimination and inequalities, adding, "The charity and patronage approach to affirmative action is more likely to perpetuate inequalities than address them".

Dr Rose Mensah-Kuntin, Executive Director of ABANTU, said the level of women participation in politics was generally low, increasing at a pace of 0.5 per cent a year and called for the need for measures such as affirmative action to enable Ghana attain the UN minimum threshold of 30 per cent. 13 July 09