The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) has held a national consultative meeting with other stakeholders to streamline the roles and responsibilities of Gender Desk Officers (GDOs).
The meeting follows the development of the strategic framework and guidelines on formalizing GDOs to enhance their capacity to ensure a coherent approach to gender and social protection from the district to the national level.
Evidence from local government partners show that GDOs are challenged by unclear job descriptions and limited leadership skills to champion gender issues, making them unable to adequately facilitate gender mainstreaming at the local level.
Speaking at the high-level consultations to discuss and reflect on the constraints and opportunities to implement the clear roles and responsibilities of GDOs in Accra, Programme Manager of the GIZ-GovID Programme, Raphael Frerking, reiterated the need to mainstream gender equality into planning and budgeting processes.
Mr. Frerking noted that gender-responsive planning and budgeting eventually results in local development plans and budgets that address women’s priorities and needs to the same extent as their male counterparts.
“Gender-responsive planning focuses on equal access to education, health, transport, water, income-earning possibilities and food security. However, local development plans that are drafted with a gender perspective not only contain projects that are of high relevance for women, but also consider the possible gender impacts of all other projects and programs,” he said.
He therefore expressed optimism that the main outcome of this high-level engagement will ensure that GDOs are formalized and their capacity enhanced, advancing a coherent approach to gender and social protection from the district to the national level.
Acting Director for the Department of Gender, Thywill Eyra Kpe, said gender discrimination and inequality perpetuated towards certain groups have gained notoriety, hence the need for government and stakeholders to collaborate to ensure that issues of gender are well addressed at all levels.
To achieve this objective, the Acting Director said the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection launched the National Gender Policy with the aim of mainstreaming gender concerns into the national development processes.
Head of the Local Government Service, Ing. Dr. Nana Ato Arthur said the appointment of GDOs will be a milestone in making the Local Government Service more Client-Focus Service which is one of the values of the service.
He added that the initiative by stakeholders is laudable because it will serve as a solid foundation to bring gender mainstreaming to the threshold of the various communities on a highly organized, effective and efficient implementation of all Gender-Based interventions.
The support by GIZ is part of a larger package of the support by the German Government to the Government of Ghana to advance gender mainstreaming into the country’s planning and budgeting processes.
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri