Accra, July 28, GNA - The Network for Women's Right in Ghana (NETRIGHT) has started an education programme to educate women's groups on the need to understand the dynamics of the global economy that affects women in their everyday work. The programme, which is a prelude to an impending High-level Forum on Aid Effectiveness to be hosted by Ghana in September, is aimed at creating awareness about the programme and soliciting women's views and perspectives based on their understanding. Aid effectiveness looks at how funds from donor countries help African countries to develop.

Dr Rose Mensah-Kutin of ABANTU for Development, a non-governmental organization that focuses on women development and empowerment, who chaired the meeting, pointed out that there was the need for a breakdown of terms such as aid effectiveness to enable the ordinary Ghanaian woman to appreciate and understand such issues which affect their development in a long term. She said aid was not the road to development but rather created dependency. Ms Hamida Harrison also from ABANTU expressed concern about the country's dependence on aid and said a large percentage of the country's budget was based on financial package from the developed partners. Ms Sarah Mukasa, Programmes Director of the African Women Development Fund, noted that women are the people who deal with the burden of HIV, poverty, ignorance among other issues and said there was therefore the need for women to discuss opportunities and challenges presented by the Paris Declaration agenda and the associated new aid modalities for gender equality and empowerment of women.

The Paris Declaration is a form of agreement with the objective of enhancing better delivery and management of aid to African countries in order to improve its effectiveness. Ms Mukasa also noted that every year aid goes up yet poverty in African countries is increasing and there is the need for women to know what their share of the money was to enable them to set the agenda that would promote women empowerment.

Ms Afua Ansre, National Programme Co-ordinator of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), stressed on the situation of women in developing countries where women are saddled with poverty, high maternal mortality and other pathetic situations. She expressed regret that even though there were general policies formulated on health, transportation, agriculture and other development issues, they do not focus on women and thus most women did not have access to such programmes. "There is no gender representation in most development dialogues and no systems in place to hold governments and donors accountable," Ms Ansre said. She expressed the hope that the forum would enhance awareness on aid effectiveness to enable women's group advocate greater responsiveness to their concerns.