An Analysis of Women’s Political Participation in Ghana under SDG5

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2019-12

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University Of Ghana

Abstract

The representation of women in political and public life has been historically low across the globe despite the efforts being made to reverse the trend. Very few countries have recorded marginal and inconsistent increase in women’s representation. Ghana is not exempted from this global trend. This study focused on analyzing women’s political participation in Ghana in the context of sustainable development, an attempt to identify factors that have positively affected women’s political participation, challenges faced by women occupying and intending to occupy political positions and innovative ways of dealing with these challenges. The methodology was qualitative in design and involved online survey with purposively selected members of the general public and interviews with women parliamentarians, district assembly and unit committee members, political party executives and also representatives from non-governmental organizations. In addition to primary data from respondents, the study relied on secondary data from existing literature to support the work. The study found out that despite domestic and international commitments and efforts to increase women’s political participation, the statistics is still low at both national and local government levels with very marginal rise particularly in the number of contestants for elective positions. Since 1992, women’s representation in the national parliament has been below 13 percent. The study realized that women occupying and intending to occupy political positions face similar and sometimes peculiar challenges including excessive monetization of politics, political party gatekeeping and the ‘godfather’ syndrome and lack of support from family, media and society due to the patriarchal society. It is a wake-up call for all stakeholders. - government, women’s groups, non-governmental organizations, civil society, traditional and religious leaders, development partners and women themselves to work together. The passage of the affirmative action bill into law coupled with proper implementation, monitoring and evaluation by all stakeholders will make a difference in meeting the Sustainable Development Goal 5.

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MA. International Affairs

Keywords

Women, Political Participation, SDG5, Ghana

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