THE Minister of Women and Children’s Affairs (MOWAC), Ms Akua Sena Dansua, has underscored the importance of gender-responsive budgeting and aid effectiveness to national development.
She said this was the surest way of building the capacity of women and empowering them to address issues affecting their development.
Ms Dansua said this in a speech read on her behalf at the opening of a three-day national advocacy training workshop on Gender- Responsive Budget and AID Effectiveness for selected members of parliament and staff of ministries, departments and agencies in Ho.
It was organised by MOWAC and sponsored by the Commonwealth Secretariat in London.
She said it did not necessarily imply “more money for women” but finding a more efficient use of scarce resources and analysing how public resources were distributed and the adjustment budgets to ensure fairness and equity in the distribution of national resources for development.
She said gender-responsive budgeting was an appropriate intervention for poverty reduction and some objectives of the Millennium Development Goals(MDGs) and added that the capacity of MDAs, National Development Planning Commission(NDPC) , parliament and key sectors would continue to be strengthened to track down government and donor resources for gender equality and women’s empowerment in the country.
Ms Dansua called for co-operation among all key players and identified stakeholders since it was a prerequisite for a successful implementation of gender budgeting in the country.
In an address, an advisor of the Commonwealth Secretariat, Madam Jennet Kem, said the ultimate goal was to make donors support and domestic resources more responsive to the specific needs, experiences and interests of men and women in all social categories.
She said given the complexities of gender- responsive budgeting and financing development, there was the need for a concerted approach and strong alliances, adding that the government had noted the challenge of insufficient capacities and skills among its technical staff involved in planning and budgeting to perform gender related work, hence the workshop.
She declared that the Commonwealth secretariat was dedicated to enhancing gender equality and women’s empowerment in member countries, as stated in its strategic plan and operationalised in the Plan of Action on Gender Equality for 2005-2015.
Madam Kem said the secretariat would in future work to deepen existing knowledge on the impact of revenue collection and distribution on gender equality and that had started on mainstreaming gender in the informal sector, with the aim of generating evidence to support social protection measures for women and other vulnerable actors.
In a welcoming address, the Volta Regional Minister, Mr Joseph Amenowode, said if gender issues were not addressed effectively as part of the strategy of socio- economic development, there was the likelihood of lopsidedness in development.
He, therefore, urged participants to treat the subject thoroughly in order to come out with concrete and scientific recommendations for gender planning and budgeting.
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