Resource women to participate in assembly elections - Sagnarigu MCE
The Municipal Chief Executive for Sagnarigu in the Northern Region, Hajia Mariam Iddrisu has called on Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) to adequately engage and resource women aspiring to participate in the District Level Elections (DLEs).
She said financial constraints were deterring women from participating in local governance and, therefore, the assemblies needed to support them adequately to prepare and contest in the elections.
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She made the call in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) on the sidelines of a capacity building workshop for assembly women in Bolgatanga in the Upper East Region.
The workshop was part of a national sensitisation programme organised by the Institute of Local government Studies (ILGS) in collaboration with the National Association of Local Authorities (NALAG) and the inter ministerial coordination committee on decentralisation.
The capacity building programme is aimed at increasing women’s participation in the forthcoming district level elections.
NALAG and women encouragement
According to the MCE, the NALAG was supposed to ensure that women were encouraged and resourced to enable them to contest for district level elections and, therefore, it was working with gender sensitive organisations to find ways to support women aspirants to embark on their campaigns successfully.
She said when women were well attended to, it would help them move to higher heights and increase their participation in elections.
“We owe it a responsibility as MMDCEs to encourage women to participate, especially those elected assembly women and to help government appointees to move to become elected assembly members”, Hajia Iddrisu stressed.
Contest in elections
She said NALAG was also working towards a bigger forum to equip regional representatives to help MMDCEs to encourage women to contest in the elections.
She said the women’s caucus of the MMDCEs was working to push for the passage of the affirmative action bill and noted that women were the majority and needed to be properly represented in decision making.
She called on women to exhibit boldness and make their intentions known to attract and get support to win election.
She also called on her colleague female MMDCEs to begin to scout for young girls from schools to groom them and build their capacities to grow up to leadership positions.
