Akwatia, June 26, GNA - Mrs Augustina Akumanyi, Deputy Chairman of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), said the issue of fewer women participation in elections to occupy public offices had become worrisome. She said various women organizations had been trying to encourage Ghanaian women to go into politics yet there seemed to be little or no progress.

Mrs Akumanyi said this at a stakeholders' workshop on electoral conflicts at Akwatia. She said with the upcoming district level elections therefore, there was the need to educate participants to encourage women to contest. Mrs Akumanyi noted that within a couple of months, the life span of the current district assemblies and unit committees would come to an end. She said the district assembly and unit committee structures were critical elements of participatory democracy as contained in the 1992 Constitution.

Mrs Akumanyi said the concept of participatory democracy connoted the idea of every citizen getting involved in the decision making process and its development efforts at all levels.

Speaking on the topic; "Women Representative in Active Politics in Ghana," the Eastern Regional Director of the NCCE, Mr Eric Bortey, said women were noted to move nations, but unfortunately, whether intentionally or otherwise, their contribution were seen as supportive or peripheral. He traced the role of women in politics from pre-independence days to the present and said two main strategies had been suggested to make gender balance in public life a reality.

These were a comprehensive training package that would involve officials to manage and work with women in economic and social institutional frameworks, and improvement in media and civil rights activities that built the image of women. 26 June 10