Madam Samia Yaba Nkrumah, Chairperson and Leader of the Convention People's Party (CPP) on Thursday commended women of the world for their fortitude and commitment to their families and selfless devotion to their communities.

"I would also like to assure them that we will continue to champion their cause in line with the ideals captured at independence for the full emancipation of the African woman."

Madam Nkrumah made the commendation in a Message to commemorate International Women's Day on Thursday, March 8.

"Today marks an important day for women all over the world because March 8, is International Women’s Day and as the leader of a party that has long championed the cause of women, I fully support any focus on women’s empowerment.

"It is my belief that this is one of the means through which we can achieve equality of all regardless of gender."

She noted that this year’s theme “Connecting Girls, Inspiring futures” and its sub theme “Empowering Rural Women, End Poverty and Hunger” was much at the heart of all that the CPP stood for.

"It may be recalled that the CPP spearheaded gender issues on the continent with the All African Women’s Conference in 1958 which brought women from across the continent to Accra to agree a way forward for the emancipation of African women."

The CPP also initiated many policies aimed at empowering women including equal pay for equal work, free maternity pay, and affirmative action in all areas of life including the military, engineering, construction and off course in Parliament where a 10 per cent female representation in Parliament was introduced.

The passing of the Representation of the People’s Bill in 1960 led to an increase in female representation in Parliament to 18 per cent. Sadly, this has dwindled to nine per cent in the current Parliament.

"Today the CPP is happy to support the affirmative action bill which is proposed for Ghana’s Parliament and seeks to increase the representation of women in politics and all areas of decision-making. Additionally, we would like to ensure that on this occasion the noble ideals envisioned in the theme are realized to achieve equal opportunity for both girls and boys to reach their full potential.

"Importantly, we believe in the removal of all institutional, cultural and social barriers that prevent girls and young women from participation in society as equal partners particularly since women constitute the majority of our population."

The message said according to the 2010 Population and Housing Census, women constitute about 51.3 of the population of Ghana. Thus, women can be described as indispensable in the development of this nation. Women have a great role to play in our quest to evolve a new economic order, to accelerate social, economic and political development and consequently transform the Ghanaian society. Women’s contribution to their households, food production, education and health as well as national economic development has been acknowledged by many.

As is evident in the modern world, women play a range of roles including, being a wife, a mother, a home maker and above all a development agent. In effect she is expected to be a good mother and a wife and at the same contribute her quota to national development, it stated.

"The global call for increased women’s participation in socio-economic activties must not be seen as a charitable act but rather as a call for social justice and the means through which we can maximise our potential for national development.

"The woman in the 21st Century is an important agent of change this is because most women have increasingly become responsible for educational and other material needs of their dependents. We believe that in order to change our country’s vision, we have, to change our orientation as a nation and understand that to reach all the people, women must be reached first, they influence their children, the family and the nation at large. "

It said studies done in Ghana indicated that women in 2000 received less than 10 per cent of all credit going to small farmers and only one per cent of the total credit given to the agricultural sector. and that this was worth reflecting on since many women in rural areas were engaged in agricultural activity.

For women to play their role in national development and transformation, much more was need to be done to enable them to increase their contribution. For the society to be transformed, the contribution of more than half of the population must no longer be ignored and relegated to the background, it declared.

First, women have to be encouraged, enabled and empowered to achieve higher levels of education. This will increase the participation and output of women in our national development.

Second, political commitment is needed for designing and implementing a long-term national development strategy and its associated policies. These require the participation of all sectors of the society and the active enagement of both men and women.

Reflecting on the theme, Ghana needs to do more for its young population especially girls. It is only through focused and concerted action that we can achieve the laudable aims of this year’s Women Day themes of “Connecting Girls, Inspiring futures” and its sub theme “Empowering Rural Women, End Poverty and Hunger”.

To begin with we should among others:invest in human resource by, for instance, ensuring that secondary education is free and compulsory and that there is skills training to produce innovators for transformation and prioritise creating and implementing polices that target girls and young women in rural areas.

In addition, encourage mentoring programmes in which older women create schemes through which they can motivate younger ones to see success as achievable. This will be both inspirational and empowering, and encourage younger women and girls to connect by forming networks through which as peers they can learn from each other.