The Founder and Executive Director of the Henry Djaba Foundation, Otiko Djaba, has challenged aspiring assembly women to fully participate and win the upcoming District Assembly (D/A) elections.
She noted that their full participation and winning the upcoming elections would enable them take up leadership roles.
Ms Otiko Djaba threw the challenge at a workshop to build capacity of aspiring assembly women to empower them to fully participate and win the upcoming District Assembly elections.
It was organised by the Embassy of Israel in partnership with Henry Djaba Foundation and the German International Agency to build capacity of 100 women aspirants trained under the ‘Women to win Elections Initiative’, rolled out in Southern, Middle, and Northern zones of the country.
Topics discussed were ‘District Assemblies Election Guidelines’, ‘Electioneering Tactics and Campaign Strategies’, ‘Branding’ and ‘Communication Skills’ to build their confidence level.
Ms Otiko Djaba observed that the workshop marked the beginning of series of training programmes for women throughout the country to equip them to win elections at the grassroots, which was the best place to serve humanity.
“The objective is to build confidence of women to contest elections and to teach how to campaign, win elections and increase representation in decision-making to accelerate the development agenda,” she stressed.
Ms Otiko Djaba, the former Women’s Organiser of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, disclosed that there were only 6.8 per cent women representation at District Assembly level, and 13.8 per cent in Parliament, which was not good enough.
“We have over 6,000 assembly members but there are only about I,000 women at various assemblies, the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals called for equity and equality and needs to close that gap.
“Women bring a different dimension and understanding on how to handle issues and so issues of sanitation, water, education, peace, security, which are critical indicators of development, can best be pursued by women.”
She urged women to “Desire to enter into politics and reach out to the foundation for capacity building” urging Ghanaians to “vote for women aspiring to be assembly members so they could engage in local politics to ensure a balanced society.”
Mrs Shani Cooper, the Israeli Ambassador to Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone, said the Embassy decided to partner the Foundation to help groom more females for local assemblies due to Israel’s over 60 years relationship with Ghana. –GNA
