Accra, Aug. 7, GNA - Participants at a workshop to improve the participation of women in governance and decision-making have called on the Government to take affirmative action to improve the economic and political situation of women in particularly in the three northern regions.

The call is contained in a communiqu=E9 issued at the end of a three-day workshop in Tamale on the theme "Economic and Political Empowerment in Ghana", and obtained by the Ghana News Agency in Accra on Friday.

The nine-point communiqu=E9 called on the Government to implement affirmative action to the letter and support women's economic empowerment to enable them to take part in active politics. The workshop was organised by the Foundation for Security and Development in Africa (FOSDA) in Partnership with UN Development Fund for Women (IFEM-Ghana), and supported by Ibis-West Africa. It also called on the Government to ensure that 50 per cent of its 30 per cent appointments to the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) were women. Government should also fulfil its promise of appointing 40 per cent of women to Ministerial and other leadership positions at all Levels of governance. The participants demanded that women should be well and visibly represented by at least 50 per cent in the management of the Savanna Accelerated Development Authority (SADA), as well as the Northern Development Fund.

They called for the effective implementation of the Domestic Violence Act and all international conventions and protocols concerning women and girls that Ghana was signatory to. The organisers said the workshop was held after worrying observations of the low participation of women in political leadership and the dwindling numbers of women in decision making in the country. The participants were individuals and representative of various organizations particularly from the three northern regions.