About 40% of the estimated 20.7 Ghanaians live below the poverty line. Seventy percent of the classified poor live in rural areas where there is limited access to basic social services, less developed infrastructure and few opportunities for employment.
The incidence of poverty is said to be highest in the northern part of the country that lies in the savannah zone and is characterized by unreliable rainfall patterns.
Advocates of poverty reduction argue that any attempt to address the problem of poverty in the country would fail unless special allocation of resources is channeled to women, who are mostly into agriculture.
The impact of women in Ghana cannot be underestimated. They form over 52% of the country’s population. Despite gains in some areas, gender inequalities continue to limit women’s ability to participate in and contribute to the growth of the economy.
Several studies have indicated that unless women’s economic security is strengthened, regions, particularly Africa, will not be able to eliminate poverty, achieve gender equality, or realize any genuine progress on the UN’s stated Millennium Development Goals by 2015.
Gender equality indicators like literacy rates are important, but others such as employment segregation, lack of reproductive rights and gender- based violence which represents a violation of women’s rights cannot be overlooked.
These gender gaps, particularly women’s poverty represent significant economic constraints on women’s quality of life and economic productivity.
There is increasing evidence that gender equality impacts positively on growth policies.
It therefore becomes imperative for players such as non-government organizations / civil society to challenge these inequalities by integrating gender-mainstreaming practices in all development pursuits in order to achieve poverty reduction and eliminate gender inequality.
The UN defines gender mainstreaming as the process of assessing the implications for women and men of any planned action, including legislation, policies or programmes, in all areas and at all levels.
It is a strategy for making women’s as well as men’s concerns and experiences an integral dimension of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes in all political, economic and societal spheres so that women and men can benefit equally.
The Social Enterprise Development (SEND) Foundation Ghana is one of the few NGOs that focuses much of its resources to address the root causes of gender inequality.
It conducts majority of its programmes in the eastern corridor of the northern region. SEND’s gender mainstreaming approach includes a gender sensitive human resource management and a holistic approach to men’s and women’s empowerment.
SEND has always strived to reach a 60 / 40 women to men ratio in terms of project principals and met this target exactly in 2006 as 60% of its projects beneficiaries were women.
Currently, a total of 1531 women are benefiting from SEND’s micro-finance project known as Rural Commercial Women project (RCW) which has increased the income of about 81% of these women.
Over one hundred RCW peer health promoters have been trained and are educating their groups on HIV/AIDS and modern contraceptives.
Since access to credit and savings for productive activities by the rural poor in the Upper East is limited, SEND has established community based credit unions, of which more than 200 women from such credit and savings associations have been able to move from the micro credit scheme to become share-holders of their respective community cooperative credit unions.
As it celebrates its 10th anniversary it has developed a new strategic plan; 2008 -2012 to enable it to consolidate its strength, effectiveness in overcoming challenges and to remain responsive to emerging opportunities. From this year, it will be operational not only in Ghana but Liberia and Sierra Leone.
“We need to continue to engage in the promotion of pro-poor policies and good governance practices in all sectors,” stated SEND Chief Executive, Mr. Siapha Kamara at a ceremony in Accra to launch activities to mark its anniversary.
He recalled that SEND was challenged to engage in advocacy deeply at the grassroots because existing civil society organisations where doing so largely through the top-down approach.
“SEND was inspired by the need for people at the community level to master the issues to deepen democracy”.
He noted that inequality exists not only among project beneficiaries but is embedded in organizational culture and practices. However, Mr. Kamara said SEND is driven by a strong belief in the potential of people to guide its core values of social equity, participatory decision-making and development and partnership for human development.
He paid homage to partners that have contributed to the success story of his organisation including Christian Aid UK, Canadian Cooperative Association, CORDAID, Netherlands and district assemblies.
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