Accra, March 02, GNA- The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP) is reviewing and updating the National Gender Policy to include emerging issues on climate change.
The National Gender Policy seeks to regulate and mainstream gender in all sectors of the country’s institutional mechanism.
Mrs Cecilia Abena Dapaah, Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources and caretaker Minister for MOGCSP, said this at the launch of this year’s International Women’s Day in Accra on Wednesday.
The International Women’s Day was instituted by the United Nations to globally celebrate the economic, political and social achievements of women, past, present and future.
The Day, celebrated annually on 8th March, is also used to rally support at all levels to ensure that the rights and empowerment of women in all areas of national development are prioritised.
This year’s theme,“Equality today for a sustainable tomorrow” with a campaign theme #breakthebias, seeks to recognise the contribution of women and girls globally who are leading the campaign for climate change adaptation, mitigation and response to build a more sustainable future for all.
Mrs Dapaah said the development of the National Gender Policy encouraged many institutions to develop their sector specific gender policies.
She said to facilitate the integration of gender concerns into climate change actions and Ghana’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), a gender analysis had been conducted for the seven priority sectors of the NDCs, including Agriculture, Energy, Health and Disaster Risk Reduction to identify key gaps for gender mainstreaming.
That, Mrs Dapaah said, resulted in the development of a National Climate Change Gender Action Plan and Gender Mainstreaming Toolkit for Climate Actions.
‘‘The planning, budgeting and gender focal persons from across the seven priority NDCs sectors at the national level and the sub-national level have been trained in the use of the tool kit to adequately mainstream gender into climate actions in the country,’’ she added.
The Caretaker Minister said the current climate change crisis coupled with the COVID-19 pandemic had necessitated appropriate actions to be taken to ensure a better life for all, especially women, girls, the vulnerable and the excluded.
Mrs Dapaah said it was imperative for the country to design climate change prevention and adaptation programmes that reduced women’s and girl’s unpaid care work.
She said women, the majority of the world’s poor and more dependent on the natural resources that threatened climate change the most, were increasingly being recognised as more vulnerable to climate change impacts than men.
Therefore, Mrs Dapaah said there was the need to recognise and advance gender equality in the context of climate change and disaster risk reduction.
She stated that gender equality and climate change remained vital to Ghana’s development agenda as indicated in the National Medium-Term Development Policy Framework for 2022-2025.
The Policy Framework among other key areas addressed gender equality and climate change to promote reduction of deforestation, ensure gender equality, increase productive use of clean water, good energy and safer environment.
The Caretaker Minister said other key policies and strategies developed to effectively manage climate change and make the country resilient to natural and man-made disasters included the National Climate Change Policy, the National REDD+ strategy, the National Forestry Development Master Plan and the Food and Agricultural Sector Development Policy.
GNA