WOMEN’S PARTICIPATION IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN THE WA MUNICIPALITY, GHANA

Abstract

The historical subordination of women especially in public life has been widely discussed and efforts are being made globally to reverse this trend. Ghana is not insulated from this global trend. Thus, this study selectively focused on examining women’s participation in local governance in Ghana, an attempt to find out factors accounting for their low participation and the opportunities that exist to promote their effective involvement. The main objective was to ascertain the level of women participation in local governance in the Wa Municipality. Both probability and non-probability sampling techniques were used to select 180 respondents. The study revealed that out of 13 government appointed members of the Assembly; only 3 were women. Also, 93.3% of the total memberships of the unit committees in the Municipality are men with women constituting only 6.7%. The study further revealed key stumbling blocks preventing women from actively contesting local elections. These include high illiteracy rate among women, lack of interest and faith in politics, cultural barriers, inferiority complex, religious barriers and lack of support from men (husbands). It was also encouraging to note that there exist two major support structures that assist women to participate in local level elections .These structures include National Commission for Civic Education and Action Aid Ghana’s Upper West Regional Rights Program. The study therefore recommended among other things; the need for an affirmative action to pave way for increased numbers of women in local government structures, all hands to be on-deck to encourage women to take advantage of the 30% reserve appointed membership of the Municipal Assembly, government should endeavor to appoint a woman as a Municipal Chief Executive, curriculum of basic schools should be revised to include gender issues, build capacities of women to nurture their confidence and provision of credit facilities to support women centered enterprise. Finally, the study recommends the implementation of more poverty alleviation programs such as Village Saving Loans Association, Women in Agriculture, that target women and women groups should be undertaken by government and NGOs to improve the economic situation of women