Accra Dec. 9, GNA - Mrs Matilda Nantogmah, Founder and Director of the Women's Development Agency (WDA) on Tuesday called on women political activists to assert their rights and influence within their parties to emerge as candidates for election.

Mrs Nantogmah was speaking at a press conference in Accra organized by the Women Development Agency to launch a programme dubbed: "Enhancing women's participation in the Democratisation process in Ghana."

She said women have to work twice as hard as their male counterparts to gain the desired recognition in a predominantly male dominated environment." She said political parties should identify potential, good, capable and effective women candidates for selection as leaders.

There was the need also to provide all MP's and new candidates with training in gender awareness, confidence building and assertiveness.

Mrs Nantogmah said women issues were questions that concerned society as a whole and government should take the necessary steps to ensure that interests and specific problems of women were taken into account and dealt with permanently.

She said women were excluded from the decision-making process due to lack of knowledge, access to information and could therefore, not become breeding grounds for a thriving democracy.

"Women face huge imbalances in the ownership and control of these information technologies, we will therefore appeal to donor agencies for support in the form of information technology." she added.

She said it was important to enhance women's ability to enable them to become more capable of representing their interests and to influence policy makers on matters affecting economic and social development in the decentralised system of government.

Mrs Nantogmah urged all women of voting age to register and exercise their right to vote for women candidates in their constituencies.