Gender advocates resolve to make new aid regime gender sensitive

Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) engaged in gender and womenâ's rights issues are preparing adequately to ensure that their perspectives, experiences and proposals would inform and influence the implementation of the Paris Declaration (PD) on aid effectiveness, during the third High Level Forum (HLF3) to be held in Ghana.


Many gender advocates perceive the PD as a gender blind document and argue that nothing directly and fundamentally addresses the gendered nature of poverty.
Consequently, they are concerned that the declaration is fundamentally flawed since no development can occur without women’s rights being fully respected and guaranteed.

In their opinion, gender equality (GE) needs to be recognized as a key component of poverty and development.

Slated for September 2 to 4 2008, the HLF3 will review and assess progress in the implementation of the PD on aid effectiveness and to agree on a new agenda for action.

The PD was endorsed in March 2005 at the second high level forum in Paris with the objective of enhancing better delivery and management of aid in order to improve aid effectiveness. But gender activists argue that GE is not explicitly stated in the PD beyond the need for harmonization effort on cross-cutting issues such as gender equality.

According to Ms. Kathy Cusack of the Network for Womenâ's Rights in Ghana (NETRIGHT), the PD marginalizes critical issues for development, including gender equality, human rights and environmental sustainability.

She noted that the new modalities for aid pose significant challenges for GE and women’s empowerment (WE) because there is lack of political will to ensure that GE is one of the main pillars of development.

Rather, she said political will centres on public sector reform, public financial management, private sector development and procurement.

"If gender equality is not a specific national priority it may disappear from the development agenda. In most cases there is also not an adequate participatory process for defining national budget priorities in a way that fully incorporates womenâ's needs and concerns- allocation of monies is seldom transparent."
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Some gender advocates also argue that the new aid modalities founded on neo-liberal agenda do not make provisions for affordable and quality public services to the poor through essential services such as health, education, access to potable water and sanitation and energy.

Sadly, these issues directly impact on womenâ's social and economic empowerment. Often times the policies behind some of the modalities push for privatization of basic services such as water and tend to exclude strategies for universal access to basic services that are key to human development and poverty reduction.

Implications are that as of 2006, the Ministry of Health estimated that maternal mortality was 503 deaths per 100,000 live births, with regional variations as high as 600-800 deaths per 100,000 live births.

In 2007 Ghana's net primary enrollment rate was 77.3% for females and 79.8% for males. However, Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS 2006) states that only 22.3% of females and 25.9% of males complete primary school.

Inadequate infrastructure for water supply impact significantly on womenâ's workload because collection and use of water is primarily a woman’s responsibility.

Ministry of Health's records show that 70% of all diseases reported in out-patient clinics in Ghana are water-related, which adds to the burden of womenâ's household labour.

Again as custodians of family health, women shoulder a huge burden of coping with the lack of basic sanitation services. Only about 40% of urban population has access to some form of adequate household sanitation, 15% still use bucket latrines while 40% rely on public facilities.

The PD, referred to as the new regime of international aid and defined as a partnership between members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), donors and recipient developing countries, lays out global commitment organised around five key principles of effective aid.

They are; ownership, alignment, harmonization, managing for results and mutual accountability.

However, womenâ's rights advocates face challenges in attaining accountability from government because the primary focus for aid effectiveness is on institutional procedures of disbursement and not impacts on the grounds of GE.

Even the Ministry for Women and Children Affairs (MOWAC) as the technical advisor for government on GE and WE suffers from human and financial constraints.

The National Programme Coordinator of Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF-Ghana), Mrs. Bernice Sam at a consultative forum on gender and aid effectiveness urged women rights advocates and women in general to take keen interest in issues such as the PD and MDGs since they are about them.

She said women often bear the brunt of negative economic policies so they need to know impact of such policies and not be concerned with the technical language.

"If we do not accelerate efforts to incorporate gender equality, then we risk missing opportunities to channel scaled up aid to address GE and women empowerment".

Ghana is considered a highly aid-dependant country and as she hosts the HLF3 in September this year, CSOs and women are deepening their knowledge on the PD on aid effectiveness so they will be able to argue for the promotion of gender as a core issue if aid effectives is to be achieved.

Ministers from over 100 countries, heads of bilateral and multilateral development agencies, donor organizations, and civil society organizations from around the world will gather in Accra for the HLF3.