Accra, July 21, GNA - Former President Jerry John Rawlings has commended Ghanaian women for the role they have played in the political and economic development of the country since 1979. "We could not have achieved as much as we did without the women as our back bone," he said at an awards and dinner dance to climax the Third Conference of West African Women in Leadership at the Ghana International Conference Centre.

A statement issued by the Office of the Former President said Nana Konadu, who was President of the 31st December Women's Movement, was honoured by the Conference for her exemplary role in women's development, creation of grassroots structures for women and serving as the mother of the nation.

The former President once again took on the government saying he was hopeful that it would wake up to the fact that destroying the mood or fabric of the people through intimidation would make it difficult to ignite their courage to fight the 2012 elections.

"Whenever we have timidity at certain parts of government or party machinery and they feel intimidated by the courage of the people then what they end up doing is that they begin to deflate the fire and the energy that they will need to cross some of the most difficult obstacles.

"If we do not make and recognise that women in Africa are as much entitled to the freedom and justice that we are claiming for ourselves I am afraid we will always fall behind and not be able to make the rapid progress that we should be making."

Former President Rawlings said as soon as women washed their hands off the NDC because 93we got careless and irresponsible, failing to recognise what they (women) had done, and that is when we lost our first election." He praised women for their singular role of boosting national development and called on men to be more sensitive and show more responsibility towards the credibility and integrity of women.

The statement said the former President appeared at the ceremony moments after Nana Konadu had been honoured, and presented her with a large and colourful bouquet of flowers before the two hit the dance floor with exquisite dance steps that drew admiration from the international audience.

The conference agreed among other things to ensure that representatives tabled reports to policy making bodies of their individual governments, restructured the power of women for advocacy, encouraged women to stand for legislative positions and boosted the interest of the physically challenged in women advocacy.