By At the launch of Strengthening Capacities on Gender Equality and Socially Inclusive Ghana’s Elections 2024 and Beyond held on November 6, 2024, at the Sunlodge Hotel in Accra, Madam Dorcas Coker-Appiah, Executive Director of the Gender Studies and Human Rights Documentation Center, called for robust community involvement in ensuring the implementation of Ghana’s gender equality laws.
While legal frameworks mandating women’s inclusion in political parties exist, Coker-Appiah emphasized that effective change requires more than legislation.
“As I said, we can have laws, but if you don’t have strategies for implementation, the law on its own will not work,” she stated. She highlighted that these laws include “about seven schedules” detailing government responsibilities, yet without public awareness and demand, the laws often remain inactive.
Civil society, she argued, has a crucial role in educating the public about these laws. “We have to raise awareness so that ordinary citizens can hold political parties accountable,” Coker-Appiah urged. “If the law says parties must elect or nominate women, people need to know this to demand compliance.”
The Strengthening Capacities on Gender Equality and Socially Inclusive Ghana’s Elections 2024 and Beyond project aims to bolster this awareness, empowering communities to advocate for women’s representation in Ghana’s political process and holding leaders accountable for meaningful implementation.
