Hajia Hawawu Boya Gariba, Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs (MOWAC), has commended President John Atta Mills for demonstrating good faith by appointing women into decision making positions.

Speaking at a lunch, hosted by the Australian High Commissioner, Mr Billy Williams to mark the celebration of this year’s International Women’s Day (IDW) in Accra.

Hajia Gariba said women in those positions needed to prove the saying that “what the man can do, a woman can do it better”.

She said prior to the 2010 district assembly elections, the Ministry, with support from the Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG), built a capacity of 50 women per region to further raise and sustain the number of women in governance.

“MOWAC has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), for 60,000 euro support to build the capacity of Ghanaian female Parliamentary aspirants, for the upcoming general elections” she added.

Hajia Gariba revealed that the four-year on-going programme, “Gender Responsive Skills and Community Development Project (GRSCDP), funded by the government of Ghana and the African Development Bank (AfDB), would address women’s concentration on low paid economic activities, due to limited access to marketable , financial and business development skills.

She said the project would rehabilitate and expand the existing infrastructure of 25 Community Development Vocational and Technical Training Institutes within the 10 regions in the country adding that training and teaching equipments had been provided to enhance teaching and learning.

“The project is revising the existing curricular for technical and vocational training institutes. The capacity of 512 teachers is being built, to make to make teaching and learning more effective. The project sees to equip four million women entrepreneurs with the necessary business skills, and information on access to raw materials, improved technology and markets in growing their businesses and increasing their incomes,” she added.

Hajia Gariba disclosed that the project would also award scholarships to 500 girls from poor homes to increase girl’s enrollment in technical and vocational training education, as a strategy to enhance their prospect for career advancement and increased income.

The Deputy Minister said MOWAC was seeking funds to re-start its business support programme to offer facility and small loans to organized women’s groups in various income generating businesses, stressing that the move was to ease women’s access to funding from the traditional financial institution with high interest rates.

She said an institutional assessment carried out by MOWAC in 2010, identified weak institutional and technical capacity as a challenge to impede the successful implementation of the Ministry’s mandate, adding that, the GRSCD project would also build the capacity of officials from the Ministry.

Hajia Gariba assured that, the Ministry through its programmes, would champion gender issues in all public businesses to address the peculiar needs of men and women, adding that, MOWAC had built the capacity of key gender stakeholders to effectively undertake gender analysis.

The stake holders include, the leadership of Parliament, Policy Planning Monitoring and Evaluation (PPME), Gender Desk Officers (GDOs), Ministries Department and Agencies (MDAs), Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs).

She said MOWAC was working in collaboration with the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, to institutionalise GDOs at the various MMDAs, to help enforce mainstream gender advocacy.

She said MOWAC was monitoring at national level, the implementation of the relevant conventions, and protocols which provided a blueprint to improve women opportunities worldwide.

“Government through the ministry is playing a leading role in charting the path for integrating, maintaining and developing potentials of children for the benefit of society. We are directing attention more on children’s affairs both at the policy and advocacy levels which makes the creation of the ministry relevant for socio-economic development,” she said.

Hajia Gariba said school enrolment was obligatory for children under the current education policy, adding that, the government had built and rehabilitated units of new primary and Junior High School (JHS) blocks.

She said the Accelerated Child Health Programme (ACHP) and the High Impact Rapid Delivery Health Care Programme (HIRDCP) had brought improvement in child health and maternal health care.

Hajia Gariba added that the Human Trafficking Act, 2005 (Act 694), and Domestic Violence Act 2007 (Act 732), had contributed to eliminate child labour, child trafficking, child abuse and commercial sex of children.