[ 2016-09-28 ]

Women groups not satisfied with parties manifestos so far
Political parties may have presented their
manifestoes in a bid to convince the electorate to
vote for them in Election 2016 but some women
groups are not satisfied.

According to them, their issues have not received
enough attention. ABANTU for Development is
seeking to highlight with its scorecard.

The scorecard is to serve as a tracking tool to
evaluate political party practices for
accountability and gender responsiveness.

Director of ABANTU for Development, Dr Rose
Mensah-Kutin, says as women's groups and
organisations are the ones who would always
provide the relevant information for policy makers
and political parties to learn something that
would promote the democratic agenda.

"Because when we talk about democracy we are
talking about the participation of men and women
in making better the lives of the citizens of the
country as well as enhancing the voices of both
men and women on an equal basis," she said.

She said they felt that political parties are very
important because they form what the next
government would be thus it is important to know
what their interests so as to move the agenda of
women forward.

"What we have done now is to capture in a very
simple way the kinds of things the various parties
have done for women," she said adding they want to
add to the knowledge out there on the things that
have to be done to advance democracy in Ghana.

Some women political activists JOYNEWS spoke to
put forward their case for a stronger attention to
gender issues in the country’s politics and
governance.

One participant said they found it very necessary
to look at all the political parties to see if
they have lived by the promises they have made to
women and all of them have fallen short.

"This year we have made all the political parties
aware that they have all failed in their bid to
pursue the interest of women they promised, so it
would have a telling on the next government," the
participant told Joy News' Matilda Wemegah
Wednesday.

She said they are tracking all the parties over
the coming years especially from 2017 to access
the parties that would win the December elections
and form the next government.

"Now our women up on their feet and they are
making demands so let us go by that otherwise they
[political parties] would come back to us again to
see how we scored them...if they fail we would
make them aware," she said.

Source - Myjoyonline.com

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